


For Asgard: Loki's Tale Part One

by wbss21



Category: Norse Mythology, Thor - Fandom
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Literature, Loki - Freeform, Mythology - Freeform, Norse, Thor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:17:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbss21/pseuds/wbss21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eons after Loki is bound up by the Norse gods under the earth of Midgard for the murder of Baldr, two human's, Julia Wilder and Tim Baker, exploring uncharted cave systems, find him.  Horrified by the torture he's endured, they free him, knowing nothing of his true identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, everyone! I realize this is shameless self-promotion, but I’ve written a book which I currently have for sale up on amazon, and I thought I’d post the prologue and first chapter here for you guys to check out and see if you like it! If so, you might want to check out the rest of it on amazon, here: http://www.amazon.com/Asgard-Lokis-Tale-Part-One-ebook/dp/B00YNST7ZY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433298079&sr=8-1&keywords=For+Asgard%3A+Loki%27s+Tale
> 
> If not, I hope you enjoy this small sample anyway. I’m planning on doing more books in the series, obviously. But I need support and feedback to know if anyone’s actually interested. So, let me know, as always, and thanks so much again as always!

Prologue

For not the first time, Loki wonders how long an eternity does last, until such time as that eternity does come to its end.

For not the first time, but oh, how it feels he’s been here in this place so long.

In the beginning… the beginning of all this, though he had known the foolery in keeping count the days, and tried so warily to avoid it, his mind had not allowed him such mercy. In his paralyzing and drowning agony, and the death of his heart for how his wife, too, suffered, he was only too aware, not simply of the days, but the hours and minutes and seconds which ticked by in their torturous, most taunting pace.

Centuries. He’d been aware of it for centuries, until his mind, at last in its degradation and Norns mercy, had dissolved into shock and hysteria, and he no longer knew of anything at all. Only pain. Only suffering.

Times would come of clarity throughout, and in these moments would his despair overwhelm the destruction of his body, and he would beg the fates to return him to his delirium. For those times, he thought of his sons, his two, beautiful boys, turned against one another by he whom Loki had once thought of as brother, his sweet child, Narvi, made before his very eyes to tear his younger sibling limb from limb.

Loki would recall how he spilled his own, hot bile as Vali’s entrails were spilled from his ripped wide belly, and the expression of horror… horror and pleading the boy had cast upon him. Upon his father, he who was meant to protect and keep safe. And Loki had failed, failed, and let this happen to his son. 

How pathetic, how useless his own struggles had been against their hold, straining at their grips and getting himself nowhere. Pitiful his cries of mercy and sorry, woeful begging to leave his sons be, to leave his children be, please, please, please…

They had not listened, and Loki could no nothing, nothing, and oh for that above all else, he would never forgive himself.

For that he wished for oblivion, even as he thought himself not deserving of such peace.

And Sigyn, sweet, faithful Sigyn, oh but she should have abandoned him. Should have turned away and salvaged for herself what life she could. But no, his sweet girl, his beautiful woman, she had stayed by his side through this grief. Until at last she too had succumbed, first, to madness, and then death.

How in the days following her demise, he wished he too could die. How truly he wished for it. But he was an ancient god, near old as Odin All-Father himself, and one of great power. His body would not give in so easily to death, and here again Loki did find his own strength a curse upon him. 

He could not die, no matter how the poison spread and ate away at his flesh and muscle and bone. And with Sigyn’s passing, there then came no respite, no relief. Only agony, forever and ever. As his form would work most instantly to heal itself the moment the toxic venom would rend it apart, and the agony grew tenfold thus.

He could not die. He could not. Eons already he’d spent, trapped here, beneath the earth of the middle realm. Eons more he would. 

So long, it was, Loki had long ago been convinced surely, truly, he must deserve his fate.

 

Chapter 1:

Julia Wilder, and her boyfriend of the past three years, Tim Baker, were spelunking. Spelunking. 

How she’d ever let her crazy-ass boyfriend talk her into this madness, she’s resigned herself to possibly never knowing.

All she knew now was she wanted out and she wanted to go home. She’d fallen into one too many unmarked pools of water and had one too many bats get tangled in her hair, scaring her nearly half to death for this to be anyone’s idea of fun anymore.

Looking at Tim, moving ahead only a few and at a decidedly slower and less enthusiastic stride than earlier, she allowed herself the hope of thinking maybe he wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of going any farther either.

She hoped.

She could hold her tongue only a few, short minutes longer before at last she’d snapped, coming to a stubborn stop and huffing out an agitated sigh.

“Tim!” She calls, hands on hips and striking the most reproving pose she could manage for when he turned around to look at her. 

She hadn’t expected him to ignore her and keep walking.

“Tim!” She calls, louder, and finally he stops, spinning around, eyes wide with surprise, as though he genuinely hadn’t heard her before.

“What?” He asks, sounding almost dazed.

Julia frowns, shaking her head.

“I want to go home.” She says, crossing her arms. “I’m sick of this.”

Tim blinks, staring silently back at her a long moment.

“But we just started!” He says at last.

“We didn’t just start.” Julia snaps in return, losing what little patience she’d had left. “We’ve been…” here she pauses, glancing down at her watch, only able to see the face by grace of the head torch on her helmet. “going for almost three hours now. I’m tired, I’m hungry, everything hurts.” She looks back up to him. “I want to go home.”

“Aw, come on Julia.” Tim whines petulantly. “We can’t stop now. We’ll be quitters if we stop now.”

“Fine by me.” She answers him quickly, without any hint of humor. She only feels a little bad when she sees his face fall in disappointment.

Tim’s a great guy. Sweet and caring and considerate. Handsome too, Julia likes to think. He’s tall, six feet, for real. Not like a lot of guys claim, guys barely, if any, taller than her five foot seven frame. Brown hair, blue eyes, build thick with wide shoulders and a broad, flat chest. He’s her guy, and she loves him, but God damn, does he drive her crazy sometimes.

He’s got a touch of wanderlust, she thinks, the way he drags her all over the place, to all these different places. Sometimes it’s fun, like when he wants to visit some beautiful city or just hang out at some overpriced resort. Other times, not so much. Like now, like when he wants to actually go “adventuring” as he puts it. Go out into the wilderness. Hiking and stumbling through wooded areas. This caving expedition crap though, this has to be the worst, she thinks.

She doesn’t even know how he found this particular system. It wasn’t marked out on any map she could find, not even when she’d searched for it on Google. But of course, when she’d said as much to Tim, he had told her that was the entire point of spelunking. To explore as of yet unexplored caves.

Frankly, she couldn’t see the appeal.

But, still, she does feel bad, especially as she watches his face and realizes his disappointment, really, stems from knowing he’s disappointed her. She didn’t mean to make him feel bad, it’s just… her backpack feels like a bag of rocks, the straps by now digging painfully into the plains of her shoulders, her lower back aching like a son of a bitch, and her legs feel like dead weight. She’s gotten to the point she can barely lift them.

She sighs, once more shaking her head and trudging forward, closing the small distance between them.

“Look, babe, I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to this all week, and you only brought me along because you thought I’d enjoy it to. I don’t mean to crap all over your ideas. You know me, I’m just a pussy who can’t handle the outdoorsy stuff. I’m sorry.”

Tim’s expression seems to soften then, and he shakes his head, bending down and kissing her on the cheek before straightening.

“No, it’s alright.” He says. “You aren’t a pussy.” She laughs and smacks him against the shoulder, earning a broader smile from him in turn. “Seriously though,” he goes on. “I knew you weren’t totally into it. I should have listened to you. I just… I wanted you to experience something new.”

“I know.” She says. “And I agreed to it, so it’s not your fault. I guess we just need to work on our communication skills, or something.”

“Yeah.” He laughs.

“Still, you think it would be okay if we head out now? Hey, maybe we can stop by a McDonald’s or something once we get back into town. Get a couple of milkshakes?”

“Yeah, why not.” Tim answers, shrugging and smiling too. 

He wouldn’t admit it, but Julia had a sneaking suspicion that he would be as relieved as she was to finally call it quits and head back to civilization.

//

Somewhere along the way of going back the way they’d come, they get lost.

Julia could scream.

She’d put up with Tim’s assurances that he knew where they were going for about half an hour before she’d started to really lose it and now, another twenty minutes later, she’s ready to rip her hair out, and his along with it.

“Tim,” she says. 

“Just… just hold on.” He tells her. “I’m sure this is the right direction. I’m sure.”

“You said that twenty fucking minutes ago Tim, and we still aren’t any nearer to the entrance.”

“You don’t know that.” He said. “You can’t know that.”

“Tim, we’ve been walking in circles. I swear, I’ve seen that stalagmite more than once.” She points offhandedly to a large, stone formation jutting up from the ground.

“We’re close. We just need to…” Tim goes on, oblivious.

“Tim! For the love of…” Julia stops herself, breathing deeply and forcing herself to calm. “Look, we’re lost. We need to stop and think.”

“But…”

This time, Julia does lose it, ripping at her black hair, growling in frustration. That shuts Tim right up.

What is it with men and their inability to admit when they don’t know something?!

Looking back up to Tim, she sees he looks properly ashamed now, and some of her anger dissipates. She swears she’s a sucker for him.

“You’re… you’re right.” He at last admits. “I just… fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, how did we get lost?”

“I don’t know.” Julia answers. “But we did. There’s no use in whining about it now. We’ve just got to figure out where we are and how we can get back on the right path.”

“Right.” Tim nods. “Right. That’s a good plan.”

For whatever reason, Julia feels a swell of relief to hear him agree with her. She has no idea how they’re going to fix this, but just knowing they’re on the same page is a good start.

She opens her mouth, ready to make the suggestion that they sit down and rest, maybe eat a little of the lunch they’d packed and try not to panic, try to think instead. Only the words never make it past her lips.

She’s halted by a bizarre sound echoing faintly through the chamber, and she knows immediately she hasn’t imagined it by the look of unsettled confusion which flits across Tim’s face in turn.

“What was that?” He asks, and Christ, why does he have to sound nervous? If he’s nervous, than what the heck does that make her?

She’s silent a moment, waiting, listening for it again, and sure enough, it comes. A low, keening sound, almost like someone moaning. Though, how that’s possible in this place, she has no idea.

“What was that?!” Tim asks again, more alarmed.

“I don’t know.” Julia answers, feeling slightly ill to her stomach. “I don’t know.”

Again, it comes, and okay, Jesus H. Christ, it definitely is someone moaning, what sounds like in serious pain. 

Right, alright, so they were going to die down here. There was probably some psycho serial killer running around the place, picking off unsuspecting cavers. That sound was probably one of his victims, left for dead, left to die a slow, agonizing death, and they were next. Either that, or worse… She kept getting flashes of that stupid fucking movie “The Decent” running through her mind and she swore, if they made it out of here in one piece, she was going to murder Tim herself for dragging them here in the first place.

Again, the moaning came, making Julia’s blood run cold.

“Okay, what is that!?” Tim nearly shouts.

“Fuck Tim, I don’t know!” Julia screams back at him, losing her cool. “What the hell dude, you’re supposed to be the big, strong man here!”

“That’s sexist!” He snaps in return. “Just cause I’m a guy doesn’t mean I’m not a scared little girl!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Julia throws her hands up.

She can’t believe they’re having this conversation, right in the middle of… whatever the hell it is that’s making that sound. 

Sucking in a deep breath, she again tries to compose herself, pretty much failing, she thinks.

“Look,” she starts. “we… we need to figure out what’s making that sound. It sounds like someone’s hurt maybe or…”

“Are you nuts?!” Tim says, voice pitching towards panic. “We need to get out of here!”

“But if someone’s down here and they’re injured, we can’t just leave them!” She argues back, getting angry despite her fear.

Tim seems to falter a moment, clearly struggling with what to say.

“I… I doubt it’s anyone, really.” He tries lamely, and Julia can tell by his tone that he doesn’t really believe that. The more they listen to the moaning, the more obviously it’s some person. Someone suffering in pain. “Who would be down here!?” He asks a moment later.

“Someone as stupid as us, probably.” Julia replies. And again, that shuts her boyfriend right up.

A moment of silence stretches between them, before it’s again disrupted by the awful moaning.

“We have to check it out.” Julia repeats, and she knows Tim agrees when she sees his shoulders slump, his forehead creasing in worry.

“Yeah.” He says. “I guess you’re right.”

//

They follow the noise, the moaning staying pretty consistent, and they know they’re heading in the right direction when the sound grows louder and louder with each step.

To be honest, it’s pretty damn terrifying, and Julia more than once wishes her conscience would have allowed her to just say screw it and leave whatever unfortunate soul it was making the noise down here.

But it couldn’t, and she knows she’d never forgive herself for just abandoning someone who might truly need help.

She knew Tim wouldn’t either.

The closer they get to whoever or whatever’s making the noise, the deeper they seem to ascend into the cave, the ground dropping at a steady incline, the very walls around them seeming to grow darker, their blackness more impenetrable.

She really is trying not to think of that horrible movie, which, again, Tim’s fault. She doesn’t get why he even likes horror films. Especially ones like that. 

The air seems to be growing denser too, more humid. She can practically feel the water hanging there, and with it, the scent of minerals and wet. 

This sucks. This sucks so, so much.

When at last the moaning has grown loud enough to sound like its right there in front of them, that’s when the other smell hits, and Julia very nearly loses her breakfast.

Apparently, Tim doesn’t take it much better.

“Aw, Jesus, what the hell?” He groans, turning away, his forearm pressed against his nose and mouth. “What is it?”

“I… I don’t know.” Julia’s barely able to reply. “I don’t…”

And then she turns, and she has no idea what it is she’s seeing.

There… there’s a man there, or… God, she thinks it’s a man, but he’s… Oh Jesus, he’s lying flat on his back, along a massive, upraised slab of stone and there’s… there are chains tying him down, his arms stretched and raised above his head, bound at the wrists. More chains still, holding down his legs at the ankles, spread wide apart, and another, two thicker links stretched tight across his chest and stomach. He’s naked, and even from what must be a distance of fifteen or twenty feet away, and nothing but her head torch to light the space, she can see the metal of the bonds have torn into his skin and rubbed it raw, leaving rivulets of both dried and fresh blood, gleaming against paper white skin, down his arms, and staining the stone beneath him.

All at once, she knows it’s him. That he’s the one who’s been making the sounds, the moans they’ve been following. And as if in affirmation of her realization, again it comes, suddenly pitiful and weak sounding to her ears. So absolutely filled with agony and despair, she in an instant feels her eyes sting with tears.

“Oh God,” she breathes, her hands coming up to her mouth. “Oh God.”

“What?” She hears Tim distantly beside her. “What is it?”

And then she hears him gasp, and she knows he’s seen it too.

“Is… is that…?” He starts, sounding lost and terrified.

She feels herself nod, unable to speak.

She doesn’t even realize she’s taken a step closer until she feels Tim’s hand land heavily on her shoulder, jerking her back.

“Wait!” He hisses lowly. “Wait, we don’t know what this is.”

“We have to help him.” Julia says in reply, but there’s no energy to her words. She sounds uncertain and scared to her own ears.

“I… I know.” Tim says. “I know. But stop and think for a second. Someone’s obviously done this to him. Whoever it is, they could still be around.”

Julia swallows, a queasiness rising up in her gut.

“We have to help him.” She repeats. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“But if whoever did this comes back…” Tim starts.

“All the more reason we can’t leave him.” Julia says, finally coming back to herself, if only somewhat. She turns to look up at her boyfriend. “If we leave him and they come back they might… they might kill him.”

Tim looks back at her, his brow creased in worry and fear, before his eyes flick back up, towards the bound man.

“He already looks half dead.” He mumbles. But Julia can hear the pain in his voice. He isn’t suggesting the man’s beyond help. It’s only sadness talking, and horror, to realize someone could do this to another human being.

“Tim,” she brings his attention back to her. “we have to do something. Get him… get him free. Get him help.”

For a long, few seconds, he only stares back at her, and for an instant, she’s afraid he’s going to refuse.

But then he nods jerkily.

“Right.” He says. And she sees his expression harden into an unyielding determination. “Right.”


	2. Chapter 2

The smell grows worse as they move closer to the bound man. Almost unbearably so. The thick, cloying, coppery scent of blood, mixed with piss and shit and bile. Worse still, as they come within several paces of the man, the smell of burning flesh.

Julia does lose her breakfast then, turning and expelling across the cave floor.

Tim is by her side in an instant, pulling her ponytail back from her face, rubbing soothingly against her back.

"It's okay." He says. "You're okay."

Julia can only nod, shaking as she tries to press her nausea down.

It takes several minutes, but finally she's able to get a hold of herself, straightening back to her feet.

The man's moaning hasn't stopped since they've arrived, and it's driving her nearly to madness now. She doesn't think she's ever heard a more mournful sound.

Swallowing thickly, grimacing at the taste of bile mixed with ham and cheese, she nods, forcing herself to turn back around.

"You can stay back." Tim tells her. "I'll… I'll try and get him free myself." He says.

But Julia shakes her head.

"No." She says, wiping at her mouth. "No, it'll go faster if we work together."

He studies her for a moment, and she knows he's trying to figure out if she's okay or not.

Finally, he nods.

"Alright." He says.

They continue on the last, few paces towards the man, determined and terrified.

"You go around that side." Tim tells her. "I'll take the right."

Julia nods, doing as he instructs.

"D-do you think our bolt cutters will be enough to clip these chains?" She asks as they split apart.

But she doesn't ever know if Tim even answers, as her attention is caught up on the sight of the body before her.

From a distance away, in the dark, she couldn't see it, but this close, now, the source of the putrid odor becomes only too obvious, and for a moment, Julia thinks she'll again be sick.

The man's face is… it isn't there. Whatever it had once been, it's burnt away now, lips and nose gone, flesh eaten through, past the muscle and to the bone beneath, teeth pitted and exposed in a rictus, jaw hung loose and open. No tongue. No eyes…

Oh God, oh God, God, how is he still alive?! What did this? What…

"Oh Christ, there's…" she hears Tim then, his voice thick with horror.

She tears her face away from the nightmare of the bound man's face and looks to her boyfriend.

"Wh-what is it? What?" She asks.

She feels her heart hammering harder against her ribcage as she sees tears glistening in Tim's eyes, down his cheeks. He wipes hastily at them, shaking his head.

"There's bones here." He says, staring at the ground on his side of the stone slab. "Human bones."

It's too much, and again, Julia turns, vomiting onto the ground below. Tim doesn't come to her side this time, and again, it's a few minutes before she finds herself able to straighten and turn back.

When she does, she finds Tim staring down at the man, his face drawn tight in a deep and unhappy frown. He shakes his head.

"He's going to die." He says, so flatly it scares Julia a little.

He looks back up at her.

"He's going to die." He repeats.

Julia feels her face crumple.

"We have to try." She says, her voice coming out a sob. "We can't just leave him."

"I know but…" Tim goes on, eyes moving back down to the man. "I'm just warning you. He's not going to make it. I… I don't want you blaming yourself when he dies."

Another, broken sob wrenches itself from her throat, and she nods, wiping harshly at the thick tears now blinding her eyes.

"W-who would do this to someone? Who…" she cries hopelessly.

"I don't know." Tim answers, and his own voice sounds thick and uneven. "Let's just… just focus on getting him loose. Maybe we can make…" he swallows, pausing. "Maybe we can give him some comfort before he…"

Julia knows what he's going to say, and for some reason, an overwhelming despair washes over her. She forces herself to nod anyway.

"O-okay. Alright." She says. "I've got the cutters."

Tim nods back, holding up his own pair.

"We'll start at his ankles and work our way up." He says.

Julia doesn't argue, following his lead.

The bolt cutters aren't made for metal so thick, and it takes a lot more work and a lot more muscle getting through the metal links than it otherwise would. The manacles are beyond their abilities to remove. They're just going to have to stay.

As they make slow and painful progress, Julia begins to take notice of the state the rest of the man's body is in.

It's awful.

He's skeletally thin, his stomach sunken and concave, ribcage showing like a dome, each ridge and dip horrifyingly prominent. His legs and arms are like sticks, without muscle or fat of any kind, the bones there, too, showing pronouncedly and clear. He has no hair, though in the dim light, Julia thinks she can make out tufts of what once might have been red strands, scattered in random and sparse patches across his burnt scalp. He's filthy, covered in dirt so thick, it's black against what is clearly very pale skin underneath, mixed no doubt with the poor man's own waste and blood.

"How… how long do you think he's been here, like this?" She finds herself asking as they finally cut through the link of chain binding his ankles together.

She's never seen Tim's face set in such a grim expression, and he shakes his head as he pulls the link free from the steaks pinning it down.

"I don't know." He says. "A long time. A long time."

"How is he still alive? How…" she starts, and again, he shakes his head.

"I don't know." He says once more.

None of this makes sense.

They make their way steadily but with difficulty through the chains pulled across the man's stomach and chest, all the while, the pitiful keening continuing on. There's no getting used to it. Knowing now what's causing it only makes it worse. As they move up the man's body, Julia sees there are similar burns scouring all across his chest and shoulders in what appears a splatter pattern, muscle and bone showing through. Once more, she finds herself struggling not to be sick.

If the man is at all aware of their presence, he's given absolutely no indication of such. Julia doesn't see how he could be. He must be gone with the pain.

It's as they're moving on to the final set of chains, binding his wrists up above his head, that they hear it, and then see.

There's a low hiss, what sounds almost like a snake, and then a fresh and noxious smell fills their nostrils, something that makes Julia's throat momentarily close up.

And then the glint of something catches her eye, and she turns her face, seeing the drip of some bright yellow liquid falling through the air, from a few feet above their heads. She follows the line of it as it makes its decent, all the way down, only to watch it crash and splatter across the bound man's already burnt away face.

The man seems hardly to react. But Julia knows, whatever's just hit his face, he feels it, as his steady and quiet moaning of before changes into something deeper and, if possible, more anguished. He thrashes weakly, arms and legs, now freed from their chains, moving shallowly about in a pathetic struggle, and Julia once more has to look away, her heart tearing at the sight.

"Oh God, it's… it's acid or…" she hears Tim say, and she turns back, seeing him staring in horror at the man's nonexistent face, where the liquid had fallen. Turning her own gaze there, and she sees and hears the sizzling pop as whatever it is eats away at what little flesh and muscle remains there.

She swallows thickly, the scent of copper filling freshly in the air, making her stomach churn.

"We have to get him out. W-we have to…" she stammers stupidly, too stunned to even understand what it is that's happening.

Tim only nods, beginning again to bring his clippers up and start on the last set of chains.

It's only then Julia thinks to look up towards the source of the liquid, and there she sees it.

"LOOK OUT!" She cries, reaching across the man and batting Tim's hands back.

He startles, glancing towards her.

"What?!" He asks, voice filled with alarm, before following her eyes up.

"Holy fuck!" She hears him curse, and she knows he's seen it.

A giant, black and yellow skinned snake, seemingly embedded in an outcropping of rock overhead, it's eyes glowing an unnatural blue in the heavy dark, it's mouth opened wide, two or three inch long fangs gleaming, thick with venom dripping down and off their ends. Its head is the size of a fucking shovel.

"Wh-what the hell is that thing?" She asks, voice shaking almost uncontrollably.

"A snake." Tim answers bluntly, in just as unsteady a voice.

"D-do we kill it?" She asks.

She thinks she sees Tim shake his head in her periphery.

"I don't want it biting us." He says. "L-let's… let's just get him loose and get away from it."

"Ri-right." She replies dazedly.

They continue on in their task, watching the snake several feet overhead warily and with trepidation.

The thing continues to drip venom from its fangs, onto the bound man's face, and Julia finds herself jumping back each time, her mouth open in a scream which she narrowly manages to suppress. Oh God, if only they could work faster.

It's agonizing, trying to get the poor man loose, knowing how much pain he must be in, each time the venom strikes. But there's nothing they can do better than simply trying to get him loose and away from the damned thing.

It seems to take an eternity, but finally they manage to work through the last of the metal, the link snapping in half.

Tim wastes no time in pulling it free from its stakes and tossing it aside.

"O-Okay. Okay." He says. "H-help me get him up, o-off this rock."

Julia nods.

"Take an arm." Tim goes on. "I'll take the other and we… we'll haul him up. On three, okay?"

Another nod.

The man's forearm and wrist feel like nothing but hard bone beneath her fingers as they pull his arms down, quickly to avoid the still dripping venom.

"One… two… THREE!" Tim says, and they both pull the man up and towards them.

He's heavy. Way heavier than Julia would have thought possible, given his completely wasted away form. She doesn't have more than a moment to contemplate it, however, as she and Tim pull him away from the slab, a broken and wheezing groan escaping the man's lips as he falls forward.

They loose their balance, not anticipating the weight of the man, both of them stumbling backwards as they struggle to hold on.

It's useless, both her and Tim losing their footing and falling hard to the ground, their grip on the man's arms letting go.

He falls face first, a broken heap of long and tangled limbs upon the ground. He doesn't move.

For an instant, Julia's heart hammers painfully in her chest.

"He's dead." She thinks despairingly. "We've killed him. Oh God, oh God…"

His back, she can see now, is a torn apart mess, bloodied and raw from rubbing for who knows how long against that stone slab he was chained to.

Seconds slip by, seeming to stretch into eternity, and with each one gone, Julia is more and more certain that they've killed him, her breath loud in her own ears, tears stinging at her eyes.

And then, abruptly, and without any warning, the man suddenly begins to convulse.

It seems impossible, but Julia thinks, as she and Tim watch on in horror, that what's happening now is possibly the worst yet of all of it.

It's his death throws, she realizes, and she feels her chest tighten, shock taking her whole and rendering her paralyzed, even as she wants desperately to look away.

The man is flailing uncontrollably upon the ground, an awful, agonized moaning splitting the air.

He's dying, oh God, he's dying…

Julia can't stand to see it.

Finally, she forces herself to look away, crawling towards Tim and throwing her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder and sobbing brokenly.

He wraps his own arms around her shoulders, holding her tight, pressing his mouth to her crown.

"It's okay." He tries to tell her. "It's okay."

But nothing's okay. None of this. It's wrong. It's the most horrible thing she's ever seen…

Minutes go by, and the convulsions fail to stop, the awful moaning seeming to grow louder and stronger with each passing second, and Julia hates herself for wishing suddenly that the poor man would just die already. That he would just die and be released from his pain.

It seems to be taking too long, and her thoughts are only confirmed when she hears Tim suck in a sharp breath and hears him say…

"Something's wrong. He's… it shouldn't take this long. He… he should be dead already. He…"

His voice trails off, and at first, Julia thinks nothing of it. Thinks it's just a loss of words at the suffering they're being made to witness.

But then she hears him whisper, his voice strangely distant and filled with… awe?

"What the hell?" He says.

And at last, she lifts her face, staring up at him, too afraid to look at the dying man, and she sees Tim staring off towards him, eyes wide and mouth agape in shock.

"Tim?" She asks, confused, her fear blooming fresh in her chest.

"He's…" Tim starts, then stops, voice soft and disbelieving.

"Tim, what… what is it?" Julia asks again. "What is it? You're scaring me. What is it?"

Slowly, she sees him shake his head no, his gaze still fixed on the man.

"I-is he dead?" She asks, and realizes only a moment later he can't be. She can still hear the man moaning behind her, though more softly now. Barely audible.

"He… he's healing." Tim at last answers, his voice hardly even a whisper.

"What?" Julia asks, not understanding.

Tim swallows visibly, his eyes so wide, skin drained of its usually ruddy color, it looks like he's seen a ghost.

"H-healing. He… he's healing. His skin… his f-face…"

Julia doesn't understand. Doesn't get what he's saying.

"What are you…" she starts.

"Look." He cuts her off, and then he's lifting his hand to her cheek, turning her face away from him, towards the man.

Julia doesn't want to see, doesn't want to look.

Tim doesn't give her a choice.

She turns, and there she sees what it is that has him in such a stupefied trance.

The man, he's… he's curled in on himself, facing them, arms over his head, hands groping at the nape of his neck, and knees pulled to his chest. And he's… his face, it's… it's… there. His face is there, it's… it's growing back. Julia can see it, even in the dim and sparse light of their head torches, she can see it, the muscle and skin… knitting back together, slowly and agonizingly. But there, nonetheless. Features are beginning to come into shape. A nose and lips and… and eyes, and oh Jesus Christ, it's horrible, but it's happening. Where before his jaw hung loose and without support, it's now coming together in a strong shape. And with the forming of features, comes expression, and Julia sees the man's eyes clamped tight shut, his face screwed up in so much obvious pain.

And hair, there's… Julia had been right. Hair is coming in with a bizarre rapidity, thick, red locks of it, almost, it appears, a burnt orange or the color of deep flame. It's hard to tell in the darkness. Ringlets falling over forming ears. It only vaguely registers to her that the tips of those ears are pointed, like some elf. All the rest of it is so beyond comprehension, it hardly matters.

As the features come more fully into realization, Julia entranced and unable to pull her eyes away, even with his face wound up in the tension of pain, she can see indeed he is a very handsome man.

His nose, as it forms, is long and pronounced and straight. Cheekbones high and fine, face thin and defined, jaw strong and perfectly in width for the rest, lips thin and long.

His skin she begins to see is as pale as she'd suspected it. Pale beyond any sort she's ever seen. Like fresh driven snow. She's only marginally aware of the absurdity of such a description, because as the moment stretches, and his face comes so completely into view, she's struck almost dumb by the awful youth of it.

He looks no more than 19, 20 years old at the most.

And very suddenly she's again overcome by emotion, her eyes burning with fresh tears, spilling down her cheeks.

He's a boy. Oh God, he's just a child.

She watches, mesmerized and horrified, Tim as still and silent at her side.

And then the man's… the… the boy's eyes come open, and for a brief flash, Julia sees the most verdant shade of green she thinks she's ever beheld, bright and glowing as the lamps on their heads, cutting through the dark.

For only a flash, and then he's turning away, turning his face from them, and the boy screams.


	3. Chapter 3

Julia’s breath hitches, eyes widening in alarm. Dimly, she’s aware of Tim, flinching violently at her side, shocked and taken aback as she is.

The boy they’ve rescued is trembling viciously, long, thin fingered hands gripping at his newly grown hair as he rolls, restless and suffering, upon the ground. His cry of agony lasts what seems forever, before abruptly, it cuts out, and an instant later, he’s rolled up onto his knees, staggering then to his feet, beginning, it sounds, to speak in some utterly foreign and unrecognizable language, voice hoarse and guttural and wrecked.

“Bölvaðir nornir! Hvað nýtt og allt of laust kvöl hefur Óðinn heimsótt á mig núna !? Ég get ekki séð! Ég get ekki séð! Það getur ekki verið ljós í endalausa myrkri!”

“Uhhhh…” Tim starts dumbly, and Julia glances at him fast before bringing her eyes back to the boy.

He’s stumbling around, legs seeming coltish and weak, gripping his head and muttering to himself over and over.

And it’s then Julia really sees for the first time just how big this guy is. He isn’t broad. Not at all. He’s slender in his build, she can see, even if he wasn’t so grossly emaciated. Can see too his proportion is… is strangely perfect, despite the slightness of him. But Jesus, is he tall.

He’s got to be 6’5”, 6’6”, at the least.

Suddenly, inexplicably, she feels a very real nervousness towards him, and blindly she gropes out, reaching for Tim’s hand.

“What the hell’s he saying?” She hears her boyfriend say as he blessedly takes hold of her, pulling her closer to him, eyes still fixed ahead.

“Þú sendir blekkingar einu sinni enn. False von ... falskur von. En ég mun ekki vera blekkt. W-með vissu ég veit ég á leiðinni samt að þessi rokk. Th-the bölvaður höggormurinn Veistu enn hanga yfir höfði þínu og dropi ruining eitur sína í augum mínum. Oh, vei mér. Vei mér, hvernig ég vildi að ég gæti dáið ...”

“I-I don’t know.” Julia replies absently. “He… h-how is this even possible. He should be…”

“Dead.” Tim finishes for her. “He was… his face was burnt the hell off a few minutes ago. I don’t understand what’s…”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish as the man… boy… Julia has no idea how to think of him, turns abruptly towards them, face screwed up in such extreme agony, it again makes he throat close up. He’s staring at them directly, every line of his face mired in fear and confusion and hurt. 

And then his expression crumples, his blazingly bright eyes turning wet as he again turns from them.

“Ó, þetta er grimmur blekking.” He moans pitifully. “Hvers vegna verður þú ... af hverju ...”

He turns his head this way and that, as if searching for something before, suddenly, he seems to freeze, staring with stone like intentness upon a spot near to the slab of stone they’d loosed him from, just standing there, his muttering and agitated movement coming to a halt.

And then, just as abruptly, he starts moving again, this time towards the slab, and Julia and Tim watch in horror as he goes crashing to his knees there, hard, his boney hands reaching out towards the slick ground, fingers curling over something… something there…

“Mitt s-sonur ... sonur minn ...” he again begins speaking, voice thick with agony and despair, obvious even in a language Julia can’t understand. “ó, sætur Vali minn, líta það sem þeir gerðu til þín. Sjáðu hvað ég gerði ... sætur, fallega barnið mitt ...”

She sees the boy’s narrow shoulders heave, a deep shudder working through his skeletal frame. And then he’s sobbing, wracking, ugly sobs, shaking his whole body. Whatever he’s got his hands in, he brings it up, pressing his forehead against it, continuing to weep desperately.

“Is that… oh God, that looks like…” Tim starts, sounding suddenly sick. “it looks like innards or…”

“Aren’t those the chains?” Julia whispers, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Isn’t that where we tossed the chains?”

“Those aren’t chains.” Tim answers queasily. “He’s got some kind of l-liver or intestines or something. Oh man, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“B-but that wasn’t there before.” Julia replies. “That wasn’t there. They were chains. Those are the ch-chains we took off him. They… they changed, somehow. They…”

Her voice trails off as the boy gets back up, still holding the… what used to be the chains in his hands, the bloody trail of it sliding along the ground. He stumbles forward, around the slab of stone and to the other side, once more he falling to his knees. The sound of dried bones clacking together fills the cavern as he pushes his hands into the pile Tim had earlier mentioned.

“Lovely Sigyn ...” he continues to weep. “Loyal, falleg stúlka. Falleg kona mín ... hvernig ég hef brugðist þér. Hvernig hörmulegur hlutur er ég, að ég mundi svo að leyfa þér að fórna lífi þínu fyrir mig? Ég er því miður. Ég ekki skilið þig ekki. Sætur Sigyn mín, ég er hryggur.”

“W-we should go.” Tim suddenly says, and all at once, he’s tugging on her hand. “We should leave now.” He repeats.

Julia’s head whips around to look at him, eyes huge.

“What?” She says, bemused. 

“We should get out of here now.” Again, Tim repeats, and he’s starting to stand, trying to pull her up with him.

She resists, pulling against his hold.

“Are you crazy!?” She nearly yells. “We can’t just leave him like this!”

“He’s fine.” Tim says, eyes still fixed on the boy. “Look at him, he’s fine.”

Julia nearly chokes on her own disbelief.

“I don’t know what your definition of fine is, Tim, but he clearly isn’t it!” She snaps, horrified that Tim would even suggest something so… so heartless.

“He should be dead!” Tim snaps in return, finally losing it, looking down at her. “He… his fucking face grew back Julia! It was gone, and then it fucking grew back, and now he’s stumbling around, talking in some weirdo foreign language, crying and running his hands through a pile of bones and a bunch of intestines which just a few minutes ago were metal chains! Something’s going on here. Something fucked up, and we shouldn’t be here! We need to go, now!”

“I’m not just leaving him Tim!” Julia yells. “He needs help! He… I… I know this doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense, but he’s just a kid Tim! Look at him! He can’t be older than 19. He needs help!”

“And we helped him!” Tim cries. “We cut him loose, didn’t we?!”

“That’s not enough!” She counters angrily. “That’s not…”

They both freeze, their voices dying in their throats as they become suddenly aware of the silence filling the space, no more sound of bones shifting, and they turn, seeing the man standing there, straightened to his full height and staring unblinkingly at them with his unnerving and unnatural eyes.

In an instant then, he’s striding towards them, fast and aggressive.

Julia screams, falling back, Tim faring no better.

“Falskur dauðleg! Fara í brott! Þú ert lygi! Þú ert blekking! Ég mun ekki láta blekkjast! Away frá mér. Away!” The boy starts to gesticulate towards them wildly, throwing his hands up and out at them, as though trying to shoo them from his sight. 

“Away Illusions!” He cries again.

He takes a single step closer, still waving his arms, and from her periphery, Julia sees Tim stiffen and then, abruptly, he pushes himself to his feet.

She knows an instant later what he’s doing.

“Tim, NO!” She shouts, reaching uselessly out to stop him.

It’s too late though.

He leaps forward, reaching out and putting his hands against the boy’s shoulders, shoving him back violently.

Unsurprisingly, the boy goes tumbling backwards, too weak to withstand the force of Tim’s push.

He stumbles back before crashing with a sickening thud against one of the cavern’s stone walls, crumpling immediately to the ground in a broken heap.

“Oh God!” Julia cries, staggering to her own feet and stumbling forward. “Oh God, you killed him!” 

“I… I didn’t kill him.” Tim stammers, looking dazedly down at the unmoving boy. “He didn’t… I didn’t think he’d go down so easy!”

“You see how weak he is!” Julia protests in horror. “He must have been trapped down here for… for weeks!”

“He’s a fuckin’ giant!” Tim defends. “He’s seven feet tall!”

“He’s…” Julia starts to yell, only to be cut short by a low and pained groan coming from where the boy had fallen.

Both their heads snap towards him, eyes wide as they take him in, pushing himself with obvious effort onto his knees.

He’s shaking badly, and it takes Julia only a moment to realize that, once more, he’s weeping, bitterly and uncontrollably. The boy buries his face in his hands, so that only his shock of thick, red hair is visible, his shoulders heaving with his sobs.

“Þetta er ekki alvöru. Þetta er ekki alvöru. Hvers vegna verður þú að gera það virðast svo? WH-hvað hef ég gert? Hvað hef ég gert til að verðskulda hata þitt? Hvers vegna ... hvers vegna?”

Julia can’t stand it anymore. She can’t bare to see this kind of suffering.

She steps forward, moving towards him.

“Julia.” Tim stops her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She turns her face towards him, not even trying to hide her anger.

“He needs help Tim.” She says, voice hard and flat.

For a moment, it looks as though Tim is going to argue again. But just as quickly, his expression falls, shoulders slumping.

He nods, resigned. Letting her go, Julia wastes no time turning back to the boy and closing the distance between them, hearing Tim a few steps behind.

Within a few, short paces, and the boy flinches back from them, hard, hitting his head against the stone behind him.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Julia starts, trying to keep her voice soft, lifting her hands up in front of her and crouching down to make herself seem smaller. “it’s okay. We’re… we’re not going to hurt you. We just want to help.”

The boy’s lifted his face from his hands now, pressing back against the wall, frame rigid and thrumming tight, watching her with an intent and frightened wariness. His eyes are even more bizarrely green this close, deeply hued, like spruce needles, spreading out from around his pupil, and fading to an almost aquamarine or turquoise at the edges. More strange still, Julia notices, his pupils aren’t black. They’re… they’re blue. A dark, almost royal blue. The whites of them are pink from his crying, and he squints with obvious discomfort against the light of their head torches.

“It’s alright.” Julia tries again, not yet daring to reach out towards him.

“Þú ert blekking. Vinsamlegast, fara burt frá mér. Pyndingum mig ekki. Leyfa mér aftur í myrkur.” He mutters in a cracked whisper, voice heavily accented, something, like the language, Julia can’t place. Something entirely foreign. 

She swallows, not sure how to proceed. He obviously doesn’t speak English, and she isn’t sure how to communicate with him otherwise.

“Can you…” she starts, then stops, uncertain. “Do you understand anything I’m saying?”

The boy says nothing, staring back, still pressed back against the wall, defensive.

“Julia, I don’t think he can…” Tim starts.

“Þú talar við mig á ensku. Eyðublaðið er mikið breytt þó. Ég man það ekki hljóma svo laus.” The boy interrupts, eyes still on her.

Julia blinks.

“Do… do you think we can get cell reception down here? Maybe we can bring up a translator or…” she starts.

“Norn ljós þitt særir mín augu. Vinsamlegast, t-snúa það burt. Vinsamlegast..” Again, the boy interrupts. 

Julia sighs, frustration starting to mouth.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re say…”

“Your witch light, i… it hurts mine eyes. Please, I beg you, turn it from me.”

Julia can feel her jaw drop, eyes widened in shock and, for a moment, no words will come to her lips.

She isn’t even sure how long she sits there for before the fact the boy’s spoken English actually registers to her.

“Whoa.” she hears Tim whisper at her back.

It takes her longer still to realize the boy has turned his face away, holding his hand up, his eyes clamped shut.

“Please,” he rasps again. “the light…”

“Oh…” Julia says dumbly. “Oh! I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” 

Quickly she reaches up, flicking the switch on her head torch, dousing the bulb. 

She turns and smacks Tim across the leg when she notices him failing to do the same.

“Oh!” He startles. “R-right.” 

A moment later, darkness encompasses the space.

She can still see the boy in front of her, can make out the way his frame seems to have slumped with a loss of tension.

She swallows again to dry her throat.

“You… you speak English?” She asks, thinking herself an idiot a moment later. Obviously he speaks English.

A long moment of silence stretches, and Julia begins to think, okay, maybe he doesn’t speak English, when once more his ravaged voice sounds out. Again she takes note of the heavy accent. It sounds European, for sure. Though she had no idea which part. Maybe something Germanic. But no, that isn’t quite right the more she listens…

“I am versed well in Midgard’s myriad tongues. Though thine structure of speech remains unfamiliar. It is… unconfined.” 

“Wow, get a load of Shakespeare over here.” Tim says.

“Tim, shut up.” Julia says.

She thinks she sees the boy’s face lift up towards where her idiot boyfriend is standing back, before once more looking away.

“I fear you are an illusion or… or a dream.” He goes on, and Julia feels her heart sink. “Only there is a weight to your presence, dissimilar to such. And time does seem to stretch. I cannot be sure. Time in dreams is a shadowed thing.”

“We… we’re not a dream.” She tells him gently. “We’re real. We… we found you here. We, me and my boyfriend, Tim, we were exploring this cave system and we… we heard you. I’m Julia.”

The boy is looking at her, and Julia is struck by the distinct impression that he can see her perfectly clearly, even in this dark.

“You are mortal. You and your… Tim?”

“Uh,” she hears Tim behind her, a thread of unease working into his voice.

“We…” Julia pauses, not entirely sure what it is he’s asking. “We’re human, yeah.” She finishes. She doesn’t know what he means. 

“Does he mean do we die?” Tim says suddenly. “Because, I mean, he obviously… doesn’t, or… I mean, he should have died. He was half dead when we found him, so…”

“Tim, shut. Up.” Julia hisses, irritated beyond belief with him. Couldn’t he see this poor kid was suffering?

As if to remind her, the boy lifts his hands then, wiping absently at his eyes.

“I recognize not your dialect.” He says shakily. “Nor your wares. Has it been so long, then? Truly?”

“I… I’m sorry?” Julia starts, not understanding.

She’s startled then by a low, quiet laughter spilling forth from the boy’s lips.

“Oh, óguðlega kaldhæðni.” He starts again in his strange language. “Að ég ætti að thusly leystur. Og hvað nú er auðvitað mitt? Til að koma enda á allra goða? Ég gerði aldrei vilja það. Hvers vegna er bróðir minn í heit ýta mér til svo ljótan örlög? Hvers vegna er hann þá orðinn trúa svo í óhjákvæmilegt þess, að hann myndi deign að vera mjög arkitekt þess?”

The laughter lasts only a moment more though, before it breaks away into another sob, and again, the boy is weeping, hiding his face behind his hands.

“Here, maybe…” Tim starts, sounding uncomfortable. He turns his head torch back on, but before Julia can protest, he’s turned it away from the boy, pointing it down towards his backpack, unzipping it and beginning to root around its contents.

A few seconds pass before he pulls a zip lock bag free, a ham sandwich on white bread with mustard. Their forgotten lunch. 

“Maybe he’s hungry?” Tim suggests, holding the sandwich out to Julia.

“… I hadn’t even thought of that.” She breathes after a moment. “That’s a really good idea.” She pauses then, thinking. “But, wait, wouldn’t it be bad, for him to eat something solid? It looks like he hasn’t eaten in weeks…”

Tim just holds the sandwich closer, shaking his head.

“The dude’s face grew back babe.” He says. “Clearly he isn’t… normal. I don’t think a sandwich is going to hurt him.”

“Oh… yeah, okay.” Julia replies, taking the plastic bag from him and turning back towards the boy.

He’s still got his face buried in his hands, crying softly. Her heart aches at the sight.

“H-hey… ar… are you hungry?” She asks softly, holding the sandwich tentatively out towards him.

She feels a tap on her shoulder, turning and seeing Tim holding out a bottle of water to her.

“This too.” He says. “He… he probably needs some water.”

“R-right.” Julia nods, taking it from him and turning back to the boy.

“Hey…” she starts again, and finally, the boy lifts his face from his hands, peering at her. She can see him better now, even with Tim’s head torch directed away, the backlight of it illuminating some of the space. “we’ve got some food for you. And water.”

The boy swallows, his gaze flicking for a moment to the outreached bag and bottle, then back up to Julia’s face.

He wipes again at his eyes, almost clumsily, like a small child.

“You… you would share this with me?” He asks, voice still rough and soft.

Julia nods, smiling at him thinly, hoping it’s encouraging.

Once more, the boy swallows, and she watches as a pink tongue comes darting out, licking at his lips, seeming nervous.

An instant later though, and his hands reach forward. Julia doesn’t miss the way they tremble, or how underneath his nails are caked with blood and dirt. She says nothing though as he takes the offered food and drink, simply backing up a little as he brings the items against his chest, cradling them as though they were priceless things. To someone who hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink in weeks, she supposes they would be.

Tim’s knelt down beside her now, watching with equally rapt attention as the boy fumbles for several, long seconds with the bottle, getting nowhere.

It’s almost as if he doesn’t know how to open it, which is… weird, Julia thinks. It would be funny, and almost cute, if the boy’s efforts weren’t turning progressively more desperate, his face twisting in so much obvious despair at his inability to get it open.

It’s as he’s clearly given up and has taken the bottle, seemingly ready to smash it upon the ground in an effort to get the water out, that Julia reaches forward and takes it from him.

His face snaps up, looking at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“I’m just going to help you.” She tells him. “It’s okay. I’m just going to open this for you.”

He keeps staring back at her, saying nothing, his chest rising and falling in a rapid, shallow pattern.

Slowly, she twists the plastic cap off, and sees his eyes drop down to the movement, still deep with confusion and fear.

“See?” She asks, palming the cap and handing the bottle back towards him. “No big deal, yeah?”

His gaze remains on her hands and the again proffered water a moment before, once more, he reaches out to take it, saying nothing.

When he brings it to his lips, again, it seems almost as if he’s never encountered a plastic bottle before, and, again, it strikes Julia odd. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with such a small rim, and after a few moments of uncertainty, he throws his head back, along with the water, sort of… flinging the liquid from it and into his mouth. Half of it misses, hitting him in the face and dribbling down his chin.

Tim snorts beside her, and she punches him in the arm before starting to reach out, again to help the poor kid. But before she can, he seems to have gotten a better idea about the thing, shoving the bottles nozzle into his mouth and once more lifting his head back, chugging it.

His throat works convulsively as he swallows, deeply and wholly.

He doesn’t even take a moments pause to breath, and in seconds, the entire bottle of water is polished off, empty.

He drops it, and next comes the plastic zip lock. Again, the boy seems utterly lost. For a moment, he brings the entire thing to his mouth, as if he’s going to eat it bag and all, and only stops when Julia gasps and reaches abruptly out to stop him.

She realizes it’s a mistake an instant later, when he flinches back from her, almost hitting his head against the stone wall again. Immediately, she retracts her hand.

“No… no,” she starts trying to explain. “y-you don’t eat the bag. The… the food’s inside the bag. You have to take it out.”

The boy blinks at her, clearly not getting it. 

“Here, just…” she reaches out again, more slowly this time.

It takes him a moment to understand what she’s asking, and reluctantly then, he hands the zip lock back to her, watching intently as she opens it up, taking the sandwich out and holding it back out to him.

He sniffs at the food only a moment before trying it. He barely pauses to chew, and in three, big bites, the entire thing, like the water, is gone.

Clearly the boy had both been starving and dying of thirst. Julia doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything more horrible in her life.

“Better?” She asks as the boy slumps back against the wall, trembling viciously still. His eyes have slipped closed, and it takes a long moment before he gives a faint nod.

“Aye.” He says. “Mm… my greatest gratitude to you both.” 

A few things are starting to catch at and unsettle Julia’s sense of logic, beyond just the absolute impossibility of what had earlier happened with his face and other wounds. 

First, Tim’s insensitive comment about Shakespeare aside, this guy speaks the most weirdly formal and archaic sounding English she’s ever heard. Nothing at all like how modern people speak. Second, his obvious confusion over the bottled water and plastic bag. He’d acted entirely like he didn’t know what they were. At all. Like he’d never seen anything like it in his entire life. That didn’t jibe at all with what any person living in modern civilization should and would know. She’d think he was one of those isolated tribes people still living in deep forests and cut off from any and all society, except his English is perfect, albeit, again, archaic sounding, and he’s… well, he’s about the whitest looking person she’s ever seen too. She’s never seen skin that color before. Never anything so pale. Not in a sickly way either. Just like… almost ethereal, though the thought makes her want to laugh. With his red hair and green eyes, she’d say he looks Irish, but then… not quite that either. And though she hears what she thinks is something almost Celtic in his accent, again, not quite. Not really.

She doesn’t know what he is, where he’s from. Doesn’t know what to make of any of this.

“… I wish to be away from here.” Her thoughts are disrupted by his quiet voice, and she lifts her eyes to him, seeing him staring off, past her and Tim, to some indistinct spot beyond. “If this be true, I… I wish to be away. To leave this place.”

Tim shifts closer.

“Hey, you know the way out of here?” He starts to ask. “That’s actually how we found you. We got turned around at some point and couldn’t find our way out.”

“Tim, maybe we should wait to…” Julia starts to protest.

“Long has it been since that day in the stream.” The boy interrupts her. “When mine nephew did catch me up and I was brought and bound here, shut up beneath Midgardian earth. Yet the day remains, in my mind, most distinct.” Here his voice seems to waver, trailing off into nearly a whisper. He pauses for several seconds before continuing. “I should know the way out.”

Julia hears Tim sigh in relief.

“Man, that’s great. That’s really great. And hey, look, I’m sorry I pushed you before. It’s just… you were freakin’ me and my girl out with all that crazy waving and shit.”

The boy is looking at Tim as if he hasn’t a single clue what it is he’s just said.

“Uhhh…” Tim starts awkwardly, uncertain. “I mean…”

“What my boyfriend means to say is, we’d be really grateful if you could help us find our way out too.” Julia saves him from saying anything else. “And also, that he’s sorry for hurting you earlier. We were just afraid, is all.”

The boy shakes his head, beginning to push himself with obvious difficulty to his knees.

“He did not hurt me.” He says, trying with even greater effort to get to his feet. Julia and Tim both reach out, taking hold of the boy’s sticklike arms and helping him to stand. He’s wobbly on his feet, but somehow manages not to go back down.

Even half hunched over, he towers over both of them, and peering at her and Tim, looking between them, he seems to be wondering at something.

“This… boy-friend?” He starts. “I know not the term. He is your shield companion?”

“Uhh,” Tim starts again, and again, Julia intervenes.

“N-no. Um, it means we’re together. Uh, boyfriend and girlfriend. You know?”

From the boy’s clearly confused expression, he doesn’t know at all, and things just keep getting weirder, Julia thinks.

“We’re, uh… mates?” Tim tries, the word sounding ridiculous on his tongue. Though Julia realizes then, though he speaks in such a funny way, it sounds entirely natural to the boy. 

“Mates.” The boy replies, and there’s sudden understanding in his voice. “Then you are joined?”

“Uhh… you mean married?” Tim asks, and the boy nods.

“Aye.” He answers.

“No… no, not yet. But we’re planning to…” Julia says, voice trailing off. “I mean, soon, hopefully.” She finishes. 

She and Tim had been having trouble deciding on a date lately, and all the planning involved with having a wedding had been driving them both crazy. Sometimes, she thinks, it would be easier to just remain like they are. What was marriage but a piece of paper anyway? But then, like her own parents loved to point out, there were all the legal implications and rights involved with being officially together and… it was all just too much to think about now.

“Then you are being courted.” The boy says, once more breaking her from her thoughts. “That is most fine.”

“Err, thanks… I guess.” Julia says.

“Your manner of speech is most peculiar.” He goes on, beginning to step past them.

“Dude, seriously?” Tim objects, almost laughing.

“I know not this… dude.” The boy says, his pronunciation of the word decidedly foreign. Before either of them can explain, he continues on, half walking, half hobbling back towards the stone slab. “I would bring with us my wife and son. They… they are, each of them, deserving their pr-proper funeral rights.” His voice goes thick, and it’s obvious he’s again holding back tears. 

Julia feels her heart sink at the despair in his tone, it taking her mind a long moment to actually register his words.

Wait… wife and son?

“M-more woe to me, that I should know not the fate of my older boy.” He goes on, oblivious to her and Tim’s sudden distress. “Would that I knew where his body does lie, so that for him too I might send him sailing.”

Tim leans down to her, whispering in her ear.

“Does he mean…” he starts to say, and she shushes him quickly.

“I would make of use one of your satchels?” The boy continues, and when they look up at him again, they see him standing by Julia’s unloaded backpack, staring curiously at it. He looks to them, his eyes questioning, asking, clearly, for permission. 

“I’m not letting him use mine.” Tim says immediately. 

“Tim!” Julia smacks his arm, horrified. 

“What!?” He hisses back. “That’s sick! I don’t want some… some bones and innards all over my stuff!”

“Oh my God, I am so, so sorry.” Julia turns her attention back to the boy, absolutely mortified. “Tim is an idiot. Please don’t listen to him. He didn’t mean anything by what he just said. He just doesn’t have any class.”

“Hey!” Tim protests, but Julia waves him off.

“I’m so sorry.” She repeats. “You can use my bag. It’s alright.”

The boy is looking at her with that same, quizzical expression, a vague frown pulling at his lips.

“Do you know me then?” He asks, and Julia has no idea what he’s talking about. “I had sensed no belief in either of you.”

Both Julia and Tim stare blankly, unsure at all how to answer that.

The boy’s frown deepens, brow furrowing, before he seems to realize something, shaking his head and turning back towards the backpack.

“D-disregard my words.” He says. “I am weary and my thoughts a jumble. My gratitude to you, Lady Julia, for the use of your bag.”

“Oh, s-sure.” She answers.

She says nothing else about his strange statement, and tries in vain to stamp down the sense, once again, that he isn’t at all what he seems. 

To shut out the nagging feeling that this boy, this poor, damaged boy is something so much more.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Loki’s words in Icelandic translated, in order of when spoken, into English:

Cursed Norns! What new and woeful torment has Odin visited upon me now!? I cannot see! I cannot see! There cannot be light in endless dark!

You send illusions once more. False hope... false hope. But I will not be deceived. W-with certainty I know am I still bound to that rock. Th-the cursed serpent doth still hang above thy head and drip its ruining poison into mine eyes. Oh, woe to me. Woe to me, how I wish I could die...

Oh, this is a cruel illusion. Why must you... why...

My s-son... my son... oh, my sweet Vali, look what they did to you. Look what I did... my sweet, beautiful child...

Lovely Sigyn... Loyal, beautiful girl. My beautiful wife... how I have failed you. How wretched a thing am I, that I would so allow you to sacrifice your life for me? I am sorry. I do not deserve you. My sweet Sigyn, I am sorry.

False mortals! Begone! You are a lie! You are a deception! I will not be fooled! Away from me. Away!

This isn't real. This isn't real. Why must you make it seem so? Wh-what have I done? What have I done to do deserve your hate? Why... why?

You are an illusion. Please, please, go away from me. Torture me not. Allow me back to darkness.

You speak to me in English. The form is much changed though. I remember it not sounding so loose.

Your torch light hurts mine eyes. Please, t-turn it away. Please.

Oh, wicked irony. That I should be thusly freed. And what now is my course? To bring an end to all the gods? I never did desire it. Why does my brother in vow push me towards so grim a fate? Why then does he believe so in its inevitability, that he would deign to be its very architect?


	4. Chapter 4

After some real difficulty with the backpack’s zippers, and Julia once more having to intervene to show the boy just how to work them, for which, again, he’d thanked her and remarked upon the oddity of the contraption, she’d taken on the task also of emptying the contents, keeping a few things to hold in her arms and dumping the rest into Tim’s bag, before stepping back and keeping a respectful distance as the boy had gone about gathering the sorry pile of bones and the… the innards that had been chains, placing them with a deliberate care and gentility into the pack.

The sight had nearly driven Julia to tears, and even Tim had had to glance away several times, for how the boy’s hands shook and he whispered lowly to himself in that strange language of his, voice choked and filled with despair as he did.

Whatever had happened to this kid, whoever had done this to him and his… his wife and child, if what he’d said was true… Julia could scarcely comprehend it. She couldn’t understand. And she found herself torn between sickened aversion, never wanting to know the story behind it all, and an awful, morbid curiosity, wanting desperately to know instead.

She hadn’t had the guts to ask. Neither had Tim, and the boy hadn’t offered any further words on the matter, simply gathering the remains silently, fumbling again with the backpacks zipper until Tim this time had gone to him and helped him with it, closing it all up and even offering to carry it. The boy had shaken his head though and declined, again with his thanks.

That had all been about half an hour ago, by Julia’s estimate. It wasn’t like her phone worked down here and she didn’t have a watch, so she was only guessing. They’d been walking steadily, with little in the way of conversation between them, and she was starting to hope the boy wasn’t actually, like, crazy or something. Wasn’t leading them in circles. 

The thought makes her stomach churn unpleasantly, and so she shoves it away.

“What are we gonna do when we make it outside?” Tim leans in close to her, whispering. “I mean, about him.” He gestures up ahead, where the boy is leading them. 

“What do you mean?” Julia whispers back, uncertain. She wonders if Tim is starting to get the same uneasy feeling she is.

“Well, I mean, he’s butt naked. That’s gonna draw some attention if we don’t get some clothes on him before we head back into town. ‘Sides, I’m getting kinda sick of staring at his perfect white ass. It shouldn’t look that good, considering he looks like he just stumbled out of a concentration camp.”

“Classy Tim.” Julia rolls her eyes, trying to keep her voice down. “Just… you brought an extra set of clothes, didn’t you? We’ll give him those when we get out. If we get out.”

“What, you think he’s foolin’ about knowing the way out?” Tim asks, brow furrowing in worry.

“I don’t know.” Julia answers honestly. “I hope not, but… we don’t even know his name or… or what he is. I mean, where he comes from and everything. He’s not normal, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Tim deadpans. And then, without warning, he turns towards the boy and calls out to him. “Hey, buddy, we were just talking and realized we don’t even know your name.”

Julia blanches, eyes wide. For a moment, she sees the boy’s stride falter, and she thinks he must be upset at the question. But then he just keeps walking, beginning to speak.

“Many are the titles by which I am called, though you know me not, my friends, and so I think they may hold little meaning for you. I am called silvertongue, trickster, mischief maker. I am called liesmith and harbinger and sly one.”

He stops then, turning back and glancing at them over his shoulder, his face lined in an almost worried expression.

“These epithets I like not, and none in truth be the name I was born to.”

Again, he pauses, turning away once more, but continuing to stand motionless, his head bowed. Julia sees him cradling the backpack to his chest, arms wrapped about it as one almost would a child. She realizes only a moment after the thought she’s just had, and steadfastly tries to shove it away.

“I am Loki, son of Farbuti, blood-brother to Odin the All-Father, uncle to Thor the Thunderer, god of mischief, lies and stories. Born of Jotunheim, bound by Asgard. I am a god and a half-giant, and to neither realm do I truly belong.”

The boy falls silent, and for a moment, no one says anything more.

Julia’s head is spinning, unable to really process everything she’s just heard. Unable to understand. She thinks, for a moment, this must be some kind of joke. Or… or that the guy’s crazy. He has to be crazy. Probably driven mad by weeks and weeks of torment, tied to that rock, acid dripping into his face…

Either that, or she’s simply misheard, because she swears the guys just claimed to be…

“Wait, Loki?!” Tim’s voice cuts through her thoughts, startling her back to the present. 

“Aye.” The boy… Loki… answers in his soft voice.

“You mean Loki Loki!?” Tim goes on. “As in, Norse pagan god Loki. That guy!?”

“Aye.” The boy answers again. “Your people in the North did worship us. By your knowing my name, mayhap they still do? I know not. It has been long since… since those days, when mortals would call upon me in prayer. I heard them still… in the beginning but… the voices did begin to fade after a time, until they vanished entire and I was left only in silence and the accompaniment of mine own torment and my poor and sweet wife beside me…”

“You’re joking.” Julia finally finds her voice. 

The boy looks back at them again, shaking his head, his face contorted in seemingly pain.

“I jest not.” He says.

“Bullshit.” Tim snaps, and edge of almost panic in his voice. “I call bullshit. You’re not a… a god. There’s no such thing! Those are all stories! Myths! Hell, they’ve even got comic books with those guys in ‘em!”

The boy smiles sadly at them then, his eyes seeming far away, and for the first time, Julia notices, though his face is painfully youthful, his eyes… they seem as old as the stars, like they’ve seen too much… know too much.

“Is that what’s become of us then?” He goes on quietly. “We’ve fallen into your myths and yarns.”

“Man, look,” Tim goes on, undeterred. “if you’re who you say you are, then prove it. If you’re really a god, then shouldn’t you have some magical powers or something?”

The boy… Loki… Julia doesn’t know what to call him now, looks at Tim oddly, as though he’s just said something particularly absurd.

“My being itself is magic. The power of Yggdrasil, the Great Ash, doth run through my veins. It is not a thing separate.”

“… Alright. Okay. You say you’ve got magic power, then show us. Show us something.” Tim presses.

“Tim, maybe we should…” Julia starts to protest.

“No, listen.” Tim cuts her short, never taking his eyes from the boy. “We’ve been following you for half an hour and we still haven’t gotten out of this fucking cave. Some weird shit’s been going on, like your face growing back and, okay, I’ll admit, that might be enough to make me believe you. But I’m starting to think we maybe shouldn’t trust you either. I want you to show us something, prove to us you are who you say you are.”

There’s a moment where such absolute grief passes over the boy’s fine features, that Julia feels her heart crumble in response, her throat tightening and eyes burning. A look of such hurt, such familiar hurt, that she can hardly bare to look upon him.

And then the look smoothes away, replaced by nothing.

“My power is much depleted, wicked away by my bonds. It will take time yet before I am well recovered.” He says.

“Of course.” Tim replies, voice dripping in skepticism.

“You trust me not.” The boy goes on. “This I understand well. Few have been those who would put their trust in one who doth hold dominion over such things as I do. I had thought, perhaps, to take you and your beloved from this place through the spaces between, which I am certain would have showed itself proof enough for you as to the sincerity of my claims, for the mortal kind are without magic. They hold no line with the Great Ash.” 

He pauses, his brow furrowing a moment as his gaze shifts to the lights on their helmets. 

“Though mayhap this has changed? You capture a light different from fire in your hates.”

He shakes his head. “Though too I feel no such power within you. But I forget myself. My vanished strength prevents me from this task of taking you through the in-between. Would it prove then to you sufficient evidence, were I to conjure a weak illusion? I have not the capacity for more, I fear.”

Tim continues looking skeptically at the boy, and Julia wishes he would just drop it. She doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth about who he is or not. Doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth about whether he really knows the way out of here. She doesn’t know. But she has a near overwhelming sense that he is.

She can’t think about the implications of that all just yet. Can’t fully wrap her mind around the idea of pagan gods actually existing. It’s just too strange. This whole day is already too strange.

“What kind of illusion?” Tim pushes on, unrelenting.

For a moment, the boy looks uncertain himself, and Julia can see him swallowing thickly. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to end up being exposed by Tim’s persistent questioning, and for some reason, it makes her feel a little sad.

But then, without further words and out of nothing but air, there’s another Tim, standing right there, next to the both of them.

“Hi.” The other Tim says in Tim’s exact voice, smiling broadly. “I’m Tim.”

Julia screams. Tim leaps back, eyes huge and startled.

“Jesus Christ!” He cries. “What the hell!?”

The both of them glance to the boy… oh, to hell with it, to Loki, watching as he sweeps his hands one over the other, and an instant later, the duplicate of Tim vanishes in a wisp of golden and green light.

Julia can’t deal. She really can’t. This is too much.

Loki looks to them both, and there’s the oddest sort of smile across his lips, tiny and almost shy.

“Does it suffice?” He asks after a moment. 

Julia nods, unable to find her voice, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees Tim do the same.

“Wh… what else can you do?” He asks, dumbfounded.

“Many things.” Loki replies quietly. “But I think now is not the time. We should continue on. We are almost to the end.” 

With that, he turns, continuing to walk.

Julia and Tim share a look with one another for a long instant, before going on, forcing themselves to follow.

//

Loki, and Julia still can’t get used to thinking of him like that, hadn’t been lying. They see light from the cave’s entrance up ahead not ten minutes later, and she swears, she could throw herself upon the earth and kiss the soil, she’s so relieved when at last they step from the suffocating, humid air of the cavern and into fresh, open air, the early afternoon sun beating down in warmth and cheer upon them.

Tim, though he’d never admit it, is just as relieved as she is, she’s sure.

Loki, she notices, is still walking, out into the middle of the clearing they find themselves in, until, abruptly, he stops, and tilts his head back, up towards the sky. For long minutes, he just stands there like that, not moving, not saying a word.

Julia won’t lie.

She’s scared. Like, really scared.

She still can’t wrap her head around this all. Still has trouble really believing it. Yet…

Looking at him, at Loki, standing out there, about fifteen feet away, finally out in the open daylight for her to really see for the first time…

He isn’t human. 

The realization hits her like a ton of bricks. Knowing it in some vague, abstract sense had been one thing. But looking at him now, he’s so plainly not human.

He remains horrifically emaciated, his skin still dirt laden and filthy with all manner of blood and, awfully, she thinks, excrement.

But in the sunlight, she can see his physical perfection, in a way she simply hadn’t been able to see in the gloom of the cave.

His hair, the color of it, the texture, is unlike anything she’s ever seen. Unlike anything she thinks she can even describe. Short and only slightly curly, having grown to just past his ears, as she’d thought before, it’s like flame, only it’s so breathtakingly pure in its uniformity, and so entirely bright, almost as if it’s lit from within. There’s no mixture of color, like you would find upon closer examination of any human head of hair. It’s all one, perfect shade, and one might accuse the color of coming from a spray can or a die kit, were it not for how bizarrely natural it looks upon him. And even just seeing it, without need to touch, she knows it would be perfectly soft, and without oil. There’s nothing slick, no quality of muddiness or dampness to it. It appears even almost feathery.

That’s to say nothing of his skin. Even caked and muddied as it is, still, what swaths of it she can see, she can see are, like his hair, so perfectly, unilaterally even in tone, and so sickeningly pure white, again, it’s almost as though he’s being lit from within. And she swears, she can’t see any pores anywhere. She doesn’t think he has them. She’ll have to get closer to find out, she supposes. But looking at him now, she doesn’t think it’s an exaggeration to say he looks like he’s carved out of a block of marble. Only better. His skin looks more perfectly smooth, somehow.

Match all that up with his ridiculously good proportion, despite his painful thinness, legs that seem perfectly long with an equally proportionate torso and arm, shoulders which aren’t particularly broad, but which tapper down into such a slim waist that they look wonderful, and definitely, definitely, he isn’t human. Pile on his crazy elf ears which, again, seem to form perfectly to his perfect sized head, sitting flat and even along the sides…

He looks like a god, if gods were real, which… he’s standing right in front of her, and after what she’d seen back there in the cave, first with his face and wounds healing in rapid quick time, and then the duplicate of Tim, which he’d apparently conjured from thin air, she supposes they are real. Gods. She guesses.

He’s fucking beautiful, is what she realizes. So, so beautiful, and doesn’t she remember reading something about how Odin had gone to Jotunheim and found Loki, who was so much fairer than the other giants, and that was the reason he’d taken him to Asgard? She seems to recall something like that from her mythology courses in high school.

She also seems to recall reading that Loki was the god of evil. That he was a devil like character and that he was, ultimately, the one responsible for the downfall of the gods. Hadn’t he mentioned something back there about one of his titles? Harbinger or something?

Only, she’s trying to line all that up with what she’s experienced from him thus far, and none of it really gels.

If anything, he’s been unfailingly polite, almost painfully sweet, even. Incredibly soft spoken, to the point she’s had to strain at points to hear him, and abundantly gentle. He’s done absolutely nothing to hurt either her or Tim, and, in fact, he’d let Tim shove him into a wall without any kind of retaliation. If he really was a god, she doesn’t think he’d have had any trouble doing away with the both of them, if he felt so inclined. She was grateful indeed he didn’t seem to be.

On top of all of that, there’s just such an air of sadness about him. He seems so horribly subdued and withdrawn. Even fearful. That’s natural, she supposes, given the state they’d found him in, and how wrecked and ruined he’d at first been. The memory alone is enough to stir sympathy within her. No one should have to suffer like that, for any amount of time. And she was beginning to get the horrible feeling that it had been longer than a few weeks.

And then there was what he’d said about his wife and son’s…

She can’t quite imagine someone who’s supposed to be an incarnation of evil falling down on their knees and sobbing so desperately and with so much heartbreaking despair over the remains of their dead wife and child. Nor can she imagine them gathering those remains to take with them with so much diligent care and even reverence, as Loki had.

If he’s truly a god of evil, if he’s really so bad as she remembers him being portrayed in all those stories, he’s sure got a funny way of showing it.

Tim must have been having similar thoughts to her, because a moment later, she feels him bump her with his elbow, drawing her attention away from where Loki still stands, face to the sun.

“Hey, you think it’s a good idea to stick around him?” He asks under his breath.

She looks back at him, startled.

“What do you mean?” She asks.

Tim shrugs, sparing a glance at Loki before quickly returning his eyes to her.

“I mean, isn’t he some super bad guy in Norse mythology? And he’s, like, Thor’s arch nemesis in the comics, right? He’s evil?”

“I am not evil.” 

They’re both startled out of their conversation by the sound of Loki’s voice, and when they look up, they see he’s still standing the same distance away, position unmoved.

He shouldn’t have been able to hear that.

“Uhh,” Tim starts dumbly. “we didn’t mean… we were just talking and…”

Finally, Loki shifts, bringing his face back down and turning towards them.

If Julia had thought his body looked beyond comprehension in the natural lighting, she’s struck absolutely stupid by his face, by his sharp, angular, yet somehow still boyish features, and the simply unbelievable vividness of his eyes. They catch the light in a way that makes them appear as if they’ve absorbed it all entirely and are now filtering it back out. They glow, and pop so brightly in their multitudinous shades of green, the pupils so shockingly, breathtakingly blue from here, anyone would think he was wearing the most radical form of contacts.

No vampire ever had more stunning orbs.

God, she hopes vampires aren’t real too.

But again, in such sharp contrast to the youth of his face, she sees in those same eyes something so ancient, so old, she again finds herself unsettled, and without thought, she turns her face away, frightened. And, looking closer now too, she sees along his thin lips, faded but still so clearly visible, scars. Four lines marring the upper and lower, darker than the rest of his skin, slightly upraised and painful looking.

“I am not evil.” Loki repeats, staying where he stands. “I implore you, think not of me such things.”

There is that same desperation in his voice Julia had heard when he’d been weeping over the bones of his supposedly dead wife and son. It forces her face back up to him, and she sees, for an instant, such raw sadness etched into his features, that, again, it makes her breath catch, and she once more has to look away.

“They accuse of me my foretold fate as though it were a thing already come to pass. As though it were an end I would seek and would desire.” He goes on. “When actively I did seek instead a path away from it, they… they…” he trails off, and Julia looks back up, catching him as he turns away, his hand coming up and wiping at his face. 

For a long, few seconds, he remains silent, and Julia thinks she should say something. Some words of comfort. But then he goes on again.

“So quickly they too forget, with deception I did also give them the gift of tale telling. Of stories. And is it not story which give to thought expression outside the head?

Oh, but what use is there in my laments? They should hold for you no meaning. You, who are but children.”

He turns away again, his hands coming up and burying in his red hair, tearing at it sharply before, abruptly, he collapses to his knees, bent over until his head nearly touches the ground, shoulders shuddering as he begins, once more, to weep.

“… Shit.” Tim breathes after a long moment. “I… I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.” 

Julia feels wretched.

She can’t bare to just stand there, watching the boy… watching Loki cry like this, not after the way they’d found him. Not after hearing the despair in his voice.

She’s moving before she realizes it, going towards him. Vaguely, she’s aware of Tim following behind.

“Hey…” she starts, once she’s reached him. Carefully, she lowers herself until she’s sitting on her knees beside him. She hesitates a moment before deciding to hell with it, reaching out and placing a gentle hand upon his back.

As it appears, his skin is unnaturally smooth, she notices, yet, oddly, softer than she would have imagined. 

He flinches slightly at her touch, but then seems to settle, turning his face away from her.

“We… we didn’t mean that.” She goes on after a moment, biting her lip. “We didn’t mean to say you were bad or… we’re just a little confused, is all. We… we’ve never met somebody… like you… before.” She finishes lamely, wanting to kick herself for her clumsy words.

For long seconds, Loki gives no reply, sitting there, hunched in on himself. But then he lifts his hand, wiping vigorously at his face and shaking his head.

“Nay, thou art mortals of f-fine manners. You and your Tim have shown to me great kindness, and for that you are owed my gratitude. But how best I can demonstrate this is to remove myself from your company. You need not such a miscreant as I, casting darkness upon your heads. And so, if you will grant me pardon and an abrupt departure, I may take my leave of you.”

Loki stands then, grabbing up the bag he’d lain down before, still struggling somewhat, still weak.

He begins to walk away.

“Dude, wait!” Tim calls out. “At least… put some clothes on. You’re gonna draw some bad attention to yourself if you go walking around naked.”

Loki stops, standing still a moment, and Tim takes the opportunity to run up to him, pulling off his own backpack as he does.

“Here,” he pants, pulling out a pair of jeans and a hoodie. “Put these on at least, u-until you find something that fits you better.” 

He holds out the clothes, and big as Tim is, he looks almost like a little kid, standing next to Loki, he’s so much shorter.

Loki stares down at pants and sweatshirt a long moment, before with a trembling hand he reaches out and takes the articles, staring at them curiously.

“… My gratitude.” He says at last.

Tim just nods, stepping back.

They watch then as Loki works himself awkwardly into the clothes. Like he’s been with everything else, he doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with them, or how they work. Particularly, he struggles with the button and zipper on the jeans, and once he does get them on, they look plainly ridiculous. Several inches too short at the cuff, and the waist far too wide. They hang down on his slim hips, threatening at any moment to fall. Julia bites her lip at the sight, wishing they had a belt or something to give him. For that matter, she wishes they had some shoes for him too. 

The hoodie presents the same problem, the sleeves only coming to about a quarter of the way down his forearms, the rest of it huge and baggy on his frame. He looks like he’s swimming in the thing.

Wrangling with the sweater a moment longer, at last, Loki looks up at them, blinking. And then he offers them a lopsided smile, and again, Julia is struck by how very young he looks. It makes her heart hurt.

“My gratitude, once more.” He inclines his head to them. “For all you have done.”

He straightens, beginning again to turn.

“Wait!” Julia calls this time, and Loki again stops, turning towards her. “Wh-where will you go?” She asks, a little nervously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Once more, he gives her that same, lopsided grin, perfectly formed teeth peeking out at her through his thin lips.

“I travel away, I know not yet where.” He answers. “But I did traverse Midgard much in my youth and later on in my manhood. I trust I will manage.” 

With one, final half bow, he turns once more, still carrying the backpack against his chest, arms curled over it.

Julia and Tim can only watch as he makes his way into the tree line beyond, until he disappears from sight completely.


	5. Chapter 5

"We shouldn't have let him go." Julia complains for what must be the tenth time since they started the trek back to their car, parked at the side of the main road, a few miles out from where the cave system had been.

Tim sighs in exasperation.

"We didn't let him go, babe. He wanted to go, remember?" He says, throwing his hands up.

"We let him go." She protests woefully.

"Look, if he really was who he said he was, and I seriously have no reason to doubt it at this point… it's not like there's anything we could've done to stop him if he really wanted to split. Julia, look, you've got to stop beating yourself up over this. We did all we could to help the poor guy."

"We didn't though!" Julia goes on, almost anguished. "You saw the way he was Tim. The way he spoke, how confused he was by our, our technology, the things he said about being worshiped by people in the North. It's like he was from olden times. Like, really real olden times. And the way he spoke about being in that cave so long." She shakes her head. "I don't think he meant a few weeks, or even months Tim. I think he meant years. He probably doesn't have a clue what's out there in the world now. He could be hurt."

"His face grew back Julia." Tim deadpans. "What the hell's going to hurt him?"

She's about to respond to him that there are innumerable things out there that could and would prove hazardous to someone like the boy they just rescued. To tell him that, once people realized who he was, they would be sure to try and take advantage of him, maybe even hold him captive and experiment on him. People could be horrible things, and she wouldn't put it past them for a minute. Her mouth opens to say all of this, but the words die on her lips as she's jarred by the sound of loud honking and raised voices, cursing and shouting at something.

They've reached the road, she realizes a moment later, she and Tim breaking clear of the tree line and brush.

What they come upon is pure chaos.

Julia's eyes widen in horror at what she's seeing.

The boy… Loki… is standing in the middle of the wide road, cars on either side of him whipping by at 50, 60 miles per hour, enraged drivers and passengers hanging out of their windows, screaming at him, honking their horns madly and shaking their fists.

Loki looks absolutely terrified, his eyes wide as he looks around him, standing frozen to the spot, Julia's backpack still clutched desperately to his chest.

"Oh my God…" Julia breathes, mortified.

"What the…" Tim starts, his voice just as shocked.

"We have to help him!" Julia cries, snapping out of her momentary panic. "We have to…"

Her words fade as, suddenly, Loki steps back, stumbling away from a large pickup truck that's just whizzed past him at what must have been 80, the driver honking their horn fiercely.

"NO!" Julia shouts.

But it's too late.

It seems to happen in slow motion. She can see the car coming straight for him, sees that it's going to hit him, and there's absolutely nothing she can do to stop it.

He's going to die, she thinks wildly, hysterically. He's going to die, after all of that. After they'd gotten him out of that horrible, sickening place. After…

There's the prolonged wail of a car horn being pressed and held down, and the deafening screech of tires on pavement as the brakes are hit.

And then the air splits with the sound of impact. An ear cracking crunch of metal and plastic hitting flesh.

Julia's eyes are saucers as she sees Loki lift into the air and sees his body flung back. Watches him land with a nauseating thud against the black asphalt and roll several dozen yards before, at last, coming to a stop.

He doesn't get up.

Julia runs.

As she draws nearer, she sees he's still breathing, and a rush of relief washes through her, even as she feels her stomach drop in fear at the awful, blooming red scrapes which show through where the material of Tim's hoodie has been torn away.

She doesn't allow herself a moment longer to think on it though, closing the rest of the distance and skidding to a halt, dropping to a crouch, hands going to him immediately and pulling him from his side, onto his back.

She's shocked to find his eyes open and staring up at her, aware and clear.

"Loki…" she breathes, terrified. "what's… are you al-alright? Oh God, are you alright?"

He blinks, seeming for a moment confused.

"Lady Julia?" He asks. "What has happened?"

She half sobs, half laughs in relief, her hand moving to his face, cradling his cheek a moment before moving to the base of his skull, lifting his head up off the ground.

Somewhere in the background, she is vaguely aware of still honking horns and raised shouts.

And then she hears Tim's voice, cutting through the noise.

"Hoooly shit." He says, voice thick with astonishment.

Loki is struggling to sit up, and Julia puts a hand against his chest, trying to keep him down.

"You probably shouldn't…" she starts, and is interrupted when Tim comes to stand beside her, reaching down and tapping her on her shoulder.

"What?" She mutters, frustrated, eyes checking Loki over for any broken bones, any limbs twisted out of place.

"Jules, babe, I think you should look at this." Tim tells her.

Growling in annoyance, she snaps her head up.

"What Tim!? Can't you see he needs…"

The words die on her lips, eyes going wide as she sees the scene before her.

The car that had hit Loki, it was… well, it's not where it had been. It wasn't even on the road anymore.

Somehow, it had been tossed clear of the pavement, maybe a hundred, even two hundred yards away, turned over on its roof, the entire front end smashed completely in, smoke billowing from underneath the crunched up hood.

There were people over there, gathered around and pulling the driver free. She could see the man moving, and assumed he was alright, but…

How? How was that even possible?

"Still think your boy needs protecting?" Tim asks, turning back to her finally.

"I don't understand." Julia says, voice distant.

"That car must've hit him going at least 60." Tim says. "You didn't see it? Sure, our kid here got knocked off his feet and went flying a little ways, but… that car looked like it'd hit a freight train. The whole thing accordioned. See the ripples in the frame work?"

Looking more closely, Julia can see it, and her mouth is suddenly dry.

"We've got to get him out of here." She says.

"What?" Tim whips back around to look at her, his eyes flicking a moment after to Loki. "Julia, uh… you do see what I'm talking about, don't you? This guy is…" he pauses, shaking his head. "look, he could be dangerous." He finishes at last, voice dropping to a whisper. "And people saw this. They're going to…"

"Exactly." Julia interrupts him.

Loki has started to push himself back up now.

"Julia, I don't want you to get hurt!" Tim protests, and suddenly he's grabbed a hold of her arm, pulling her up and away from Loki. "This guy just got hit by a car doing sixty and the car got the worst of it. He's not human Julia!"

"And what do you think they'll do to him when they get a hold of him!?" Julia nearly shouts, shoving Tim away from her.

"I don't know." Tim replies angrily. "I don't care. It's not our problem!"

"Like hell it isn't!" Julia does shout now. "Tim, we're the ones who took him out of that cave! He's a complete wreck, he obviously doesn't know anything about the world! Are you telling me you're willing to just let him wander off by himself so he can get kidnapped by the government and experimented on?! And don't tell me it's not going to happen. You know the government does fucked up shit!"

Tim looks drained suddenly, his face crestfallen.

"Julia, look…" he starts, voice once more lowered. "I'm just freaked out. We don't know anything about this guy, really, and… shit." He stops, eyes flicking up, past Julia's shoulder.

"What?" She asks, whipping her head around. "Shit." She echoes.

Loki's wandering away from them, his head bowed down, his hands pulling at his hair.

He's searching, almost frantically, and it takes Julia only a moment to realize it's the backpack he'd been carrying that he's looking for.

"Hey." She calls, trotting after him.

She hears Tim growl in frustration at her back, but she ignores it, and moments later, she hears him following behind.

Loki is turning in circles, looking with wide and desperate eyes all along the road.

"I… I've lost it. I…" he goes on, more to himself than anyone.

"Loki," Julia tries, reaching out towards him when she's within a few feet. "listen, we… we should leave now. The police are…" she pauses, realizing he probably doesn't know what that is, and from his lack of response, she guesses she's right. "people are going to come." She goes on. "People who might want to take you away some place and…"

"Already they come." Loki says, still with his eyes scanning the ground. "Already do Heimdall's eyes gaze upon me and soon… soon, they will come for me. I must… must find them. Must find my beloved and son. Must set them to sail before… before…"

Julia feels a cold creep through her insides at the words, though she can't begin to explain why. Only that there's something horribly ominous in his tone. Something unsettling.

"It's here!" Tim yells, snapping her from her thoughts, and when she turns, she sees him jogging back from the side of the road, the backpack in his arms. The material of it is a little bit torn up, but otherwise it looks mostly unscathed.

Relief floods through her, turning back to Loki.

"Loki!" She says, loudly. "Tim's got it. He found it!"

But he doesn't seem to hear her, still gripping at his hair, pulling harshly at it now.

"Loki!" She calls again, and now Tim's reached her, handing her the pack.

"Here." He breathes a little heavily. "Give it to him and then we gotta split!"

"You mean…" she starts, shock spreading across her features.

"Look, we gotta go!" He says. "Take him with us, alright, we'll figure out the rest later!"

She can't help it, she leans in and presses a sloppy kiss on his lips, smiling brightly as she pulls away.

"Thanks Tim. You'll see, this is the right thing to do."

"Yeah, yeah." He groans. "Just… get him going!" He waves towards Loki and Julia doesn't hesitate a moment longer, turning and closing the distance between them.

/

It had taken all of Julia's will not to lose her own composure when, handing the backpack back to Loki, he had himself buried his face against it and held it with arms tight across, saying not a word, not even seeming to remember or care that he had just been struck by a three ton vehicle. Only caring that he'd again found the remains of his dead family.

So distracted by it had he been, that wrangling him into Tim's car hadn't even been difficult, other than the awkwardness of folding such a tall, lanky frame into a Toyota Prius.

The drive back to their small, shared home hadn't been particularly eventful either, except for Loki experiencing a slight bought of motion sickness. He hadn't thrown up, but then, he probably hadn't had anything in his stomach to do so with. Beyond that, it had been his seemingly boundless curiosity over the car itself, from it's mechanical workings to its furnishings inside, which had left both Julia and Tim unable to repress their smiles and quick glances towards one another.

Loki had thought the car was alive.

"What manner of beast do we ride?" He'd asked.

When Tim had tried to explain to him what a car was, it had only seemed to confuse Loki further. He didn't know what an engine was. Didn't know what gasoline was, or electricity, or pistons. He had no idea about any of it. He'd understood the car wasn't a living, breathing thing when they'd told him it was a machine, but then he'd begun to ask about magic, and when it was "mortals" had learned to harness it, and why, if indeed it was magic which brought this machine to life, he could sense none of it.

They'd tried explaining there was no magic, that it was run by other means, but he'd seemed incapable of grasping such a concept, though, oddly, adorably eager to learn more of it.

"What clever things you mortals are!" He'd exclaimed excitedly. "You hold no connection to the Great Tree, and so you fashion your own means of power! Thus has it always been! But truly, never did I before observe the like of this machine!"

Julia and Tim had again exchanged glances, and finally it was Julia who worked up the nerve to ask what it was they'd both been wondering about in dread.

"Loki?" She'd started, and Loki had leaned forward between the two front seats. Julia had had to swallow thickly a few times, wetting her suddenly dry throat before she'd been able to bring herself to speak. "J-just how… how long were you trapped in that cave for?"

A long moment of silence had stretched then, and Loki had fallen back, out of their sight. When Julia had dared chance a glance at him through the rearview mirror, she'd seen him, his face turned down and his previously exuberant expression melted away to something almost crestfallen. He's brought the backpack back to his lap then too, hugging it against his chest.

The silence had stretched so long that Julia had begun to think Loki simply wasn't going to answer. But then, in a voice barely more than a whisper, he'd said…

"… I know not. I… When they did bind me there, in that place, I stood still in my youth. Barely had I come of age. Perhaps three centuries past. I… And now I am into my manhood full. I am grown entire." He'd swallowed visibly, seeming to wilt into the seat. "Millennia, then. Two, perhaps three thousand years, as you Midgardian's do count them."

Tim had swerved the car as soon as the words had left Loki's mouth, Julia half falling out of her seat with the unexpected movement. But she'd understood the sentiment.

What Loki had said… it had simply defied any sense of logic either of them had. And yet… if he truly was Loki… truly was a god of Norse Mythology…

Julia supposes neither of them had really understood what that meant, until he'd started talking about years and centuries and millennia…

Later, as they'd begun to near their house, Julia had started to contemplate Loki's words exactly. The fact that he'd said two thousand, three thousand years. Began to envision being strapped to that rock, with that horrible snake, and how his face had been melted away…

She'd found it an impossible thing to truly grasp. To really imagine. Was only really aware of a vaguely sick sensation in the pit of her stomach as she tried.

The rest of the ride thereafter had been spent in uncomfortable silence, Julia occasionally glancing back at Loki through the rearview mirror to see him staring listlessly out the window at the passing scenery.

As they'd finally pulled into their short driveway, it was Tim who'd at last broken the awkward stretch.

"Well…" he begins, a note of nervous hesitation in his voice. "here we are."

Loki has his face practically pressed against the glass of his window, staring out at their small home.

"This is your dwelling?" He asks, voice thick with curiosity and almost wonder.

"Yup." Tim answers, undoing his seatbelt. Julia follows the action a moment later.

They'd tried strapping Loki in the same, but the moment they'd dragged the belt across his lap, he'd seemed nearly to have a panic attack, reminding the both of them of how he'd been chained down in that cave. Inwardly, Julia had cursed their shortsightedness, apologizing profusely and rambling to just forget the belt.

By the way Loki's shoulders had slumped from their tense rigidity, she knew she'd made the right call.

Opening their doors, Julia and Tim get out, and through the window, she can see Loki struggling to do the same, fumbling awkwardly and ineffectively with the passenger side handle.

She moves then, pulling the door open for him, all the way.

Awkwardly again, Loki slides himself out of the car, Tim standing close by, ready to offer assistance if he needs it. But he seems to be doing alright, considering, still holding the backpack close to his chest.

He hasn't taken his eyes from their unimpressive house yet, staring up at its roof in seeming awe.

"Ne'er have I seen the like of this." He starts, voice matching his expression. "Do you and your beloved be of royal descent then? Or nobility, mayhap?"

"Um, what?" Tim asks.

Julia can't help laughing.

Loki only looks more confused still as he at last pulls his eyes from the house and looks to them.

"No, we're… we're middle class all the way." Julia finally pulls herself together enough to answer. "I guess maybe the house looks bigger on the outside than the in?" She offers, not understanding Loki's apparent wonderment at it.

"But surely so sturdily constructed a dwelling as this…" Loki starts, eyes wide, before his voice trails away, and he turns back to the house, staring at it intently.

"It ain't that impressive man." Tim says. "I mean, come on, if you're really Loki, that means your from Asgard, right? Isn't that what it's called? There's, like, castles and shit there, right?"

"Aye," Loki nods, not taking his eyes from the house. "Valhalla, within the realm of Glaðsheimr, that is where Odin's hall sits. And so do the rest of the gods have their own, grand halls, but…"

He shakes his head, looking away at last, face turned to the ground. His voice comes softer when next he speaks.

"They are meant only the nobility. And homes such as these…" he nods up towards their house. "were a sign of certain wealth among the mortals. My own home was not so grand as this."

"Wait," Tim interrupts. "you're saying you don't have a house as big as ours? But, aren't you like one of the biggest deal gods from Norse mythology? I don't get that."

"I was ward to All-Father Odin, King of the Aesir." Loki answers flatly, not looking at them. "I held no claim to a hall my own. No such claim. I lived simply, with my wife and sons, away from the city, near to the edge of the forests surrounding it. I had not their wealth. Even had I, still, no claim would I have held to a hall, or a dwelling even such as this."

Julia watches then as Loki's eyes slip closed, and he squeezes the backpack tighter against his chest.

"But there was I happy." He says, voice hardly a whisper. "There did I know my truest joy."


	6. Chapter 6 Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback time folks! In which we learn a little bit more about our wayward hero!

He's barely made it through the front door of their small, wood built shack before the sound of fast approaching feet reach his ears, and seconds following, his two boys come barreling into him, nearly knocking him back with the force of their greeting, each of them wrapping themselves firmly about one of his legs.

"FATHER!" They cry in unison, elated, and Loki laughs, reaching his hands down and ruffling his sons' hair playfully.

"Good morrow, my boys!" He says, unable to keep the smile from his lips. "How fare ye two this fine day?!"

"GOOD!" Again they both shout together, and again, Loki laughs, amused.

"That is well." He tells them. "I hope you haven't given your poor mother too much of grief."

Narvi shakes his head, still clinging to Loki's leg tightly.

"Uh ah." He says. "We were good. Swear we to the Norns!"

"To the Norns!?" Loki's eyes go wide in feigned shock. "Well then, you must with certainty have been well in you manner, to make such an oath!"

"Yay!" Vali cries next, and once more, Loki laughs, beginning to walk forward, his sons still holding to him, their feet upon each of his own.

"Should we affirm your claims with your mother then?" He teases, keeping his hands on their heads to keep them steady.

"NO!" They cry.

"Oh, very well." Loki goes on, chuckling. "I suppose your word shall suffice… For now."

"Fatheeeeeeer!" They whine.

"Loki, stop teasing them."

He looks up, seeing Sigyn there, standing in the doorway to their private chamber, a soft smirk playing across her lips.

And as always happens when he lays eyes on his wife, Loki feels himself go vaguely light through the head. Ever has it been in their many centuries of union together, and well before.

Sigyn is beautiful, in his view, little matter to what the other gods say of her. Certainly, objectively, he can see she has not the stunning, visceral beauty of Freyja, or Sif, or Frigg. And he is hardly deaf to the whispers about court and out amongst the commoners, speaking of "plain", uncomely", even "unsightly" Sigyn. How disagreeable they find her appearance, with her lusterless, straight brown locks, her brown eyes and thin lips and round face. Her petit stature and soft body.

It matters not to Loki. They say of him much the same thing, for amongst the Aesir he is indeed far from their common beauty.

They all did laugh when he and Sigyn announced their match, talking of how it was well, that they should wed. For who, they asked, would debase themselves so by lying with either, but each other? And Loki had laughed back in turn, and cast eyes upon all those many women among them who had done just so with him. Laughed more loudly for how they did turn their eyes from him, beautiful, golden faces turning ruddy in shame.

Loki had had his fill of them by then. He wanted no more of their outward perfection, so grossly sullied by the dull edge of their minds and barbed cruelty of their inflated self-regard.

Sigyn, his beautiful, lovely Sigyn, she did make them all to be plain, in his eyes.

For beyond herself too, she did give to him his two, beautiful sons, and for that alone, even were she physically hideous as the most hideous dwarf, she would in his eyes be most lovely still.

He smiles back at her, genuine and broad, stepping closer, children still latched to his legs, until he's standing only a few, short feet away, bending down.

"Come, most beautiful wife, give thine husband a kiss." He says.

And she obliges, standing up on the tips of her toes and pressing her lips to his, her hands coming to cup his face and pull him closer.

The kiss lasts long and is love filled, too much, apparently, for the boys sensibilities, and they shout their protests in noises of exaggerated disgust.

Loki feels Sigyn laugh against his mouth, and at last, she lets him go, pulling back and looking down at their two sons.

"You two, go out and play in the yard." She tells them, and though her words are firm, her tone is fond. "I have need to speak with your father."

There are some minor, half-hearted protests, but Narvi and Vali do little more before scampering off excitedly.

"And stray not beyond the well!" She calls to them as they barrel through the door.

"We won't!" They hear Narvi call, before the door swings shut behind them.

Both husband and wife stare fondly after them a few moments longer, trusting that their children will do as they've been told.

They know it isn't particularly safe for them to wander into the city by themselves. The hostility of the Aesir towards Loki tends often to spill out over onto his kin.

Loki has broached his concerns with Odin perhaps half a dozen times in as many weeks, and the All-Father has given his word to do something to prevent any further incidents like the first and, thank the Norns, last, when, on an excursion through the market some months past, the boys had become separated from Loki and Sigyn by the crowd.

Loki had immediately given chase, calling out for them to come, but by the time he'd found them, it had already been too late.

Tyr, head general to Odin's forces, and perhaps one of Loki's most vocal detractors, had gotten to them first, and the scene Loki had stumbled upon had put into him a kind of fear he'd never known the like of.

His boys, his two sons, had been very visibly pushed to the ground, the massive form of Tyr looming over them, hand poised above, ready to come down in a blow. That he'd hit them thusly already was clear.

Loki hadn't thought. He'd simply acted.

Tyr was a giant of a man, his size second only to that of Thor and Odin All-Father himself. He towered well over Loki by a good six or seven inches, with twice the breadth and an immeasurably more powerful physical strength. In a one on one fight, Loki knew he would never have any sort of true chance.

But he had magic. The most powerful magic within the whole Realm, second only, again, to All-Father Odin, and it had been purely instinct which drove him to his next steps.

Rushing forward, he'd called to him his own strength, a spell of the elements, and thrusting his hands towards the general, a gust of wind nigh strong as a hurricane had blasted forth and lifted Tyr clean off his feet, sending him flying a hundred meters away.

Loki hadn't bothered with him then, simply closing the rest of the distance and scooping his boys up into his arms, turning and rushing away, back to Sigyn. He'd handed the children off to her and told her to go, to run back to their home and bar the door.

She'd protested, of course, teary eyed and frightened, and Loki had told her it was alright. That he would be alright.

It had been a lie, and he knew Sigyn could see it.

"For the children." He'd told her then, and that had been enough to send her away from him.

And then he'd gone and sat where Tyr could find him, knowing already he would pay dearly for his actions. Ward to the All-Father or not, Loki knew his position amongst the other gods. Knew he held no particular ranking, no title of any import or societal standing. He was, in the eyes of most, an interloper, and to raise arms against such a prominently placed figure as Tyr was near tantamount to treason. It mattered not Loki's reasons. He had forgotten his place and stepped beyond his bounds, and the Aesir would again demand his blood.

Odin would do what he could to protect him, that Loki had known. But he would not be able to save him from punishment entire. And so he'd waited, and shoved away his own trepidation.

When Tyr had recovered from the blast and come looking, Loki bothered not with defending himself, knowing to do so would only make his inevitable punishment worse, and Tyr, though many would call it cowardice to strike another who offered no defense, did strike him a blow which sent Loki's head reeling, and then to the darkness of unconsciousness.

When Loki had next woken, it was to find himself in chains, bound to one of the many whipping posts within one of the cities great squares, stripped to the waist and on his knees, shoulder and face half slumped against the stone pillar.

There had been a gathered crowd, raucous and shouting, crying for the torturer to commence with his grim duty. And so the torturer had obliged.

Loki had taken thirty lashes that day, the whip enchanted to drain his own power. Not the worst he'd ever endured, but still, it had left him nearly crippled by the end, and when the torturer had undone his chains and let him slip limp to the ground, he had not the strength to make it to his knees, far from the task of walking.

He doesn't think he'd have made it home that night at all, had Sigyn not been there. His poor, sweet wife. She'd stood there in the crowd, watching his punishment commence, and Loki, sensing her presence there, had been unable at all to shield her from the ugliness of the whole thing. Sweet, sensitive Sigyn, who so much hated violence, and who so deeply cared for him, though sometimes he wished she did not, if only to spare her such pain.

She'd half carried him back the entire distance to their home, the night well advanced when at last they'd reached it. And once there, unable to do anything for himself but lie there in their bed, a broken heap, Sigyn had first tended to the boys, making certain they stayed in their room, so that they could be spared the sight of their father with his back bloodied and torn asunder. And then for him she'd washed his wounds, and dressed them, fed him a potion of her own devising to help ease the pain, and sat with him the remainder of the long night, lying at his side and speaking with him softly to distract him from his sickness driven fits, her delicate fingers combing through his hair until, at last, when the suns had finally begun to make their ascent in the sky, he'd fallen back into blessed sleep, able, for a while, to forget the world.

Later on, calling him to court, Odin would offer him his apologies for the incident, as he'd called it, and Loki had told him there was no need, that he had had no hand in it, and he himself should have known better than to attack the head general. Odin had nodded and told him of course, and no more was said of it between them, though Loki had seen from the periphery of his vision, Baldr standing two steps below the All-Father's throne, upon the dais, staring back at him and smiling smugly.

It had taken every ounce of Loki's own, formidable self-control not to turn and throttle the little shit, telling himself repeatedly he knew the consequences should he think to lay hands on any prince of the realm. Most particularly Odin's favored son.

It mattered not how well Odin said to like Loki. He would always choose Baldr ahead, little matter what ills the crown prince might have committed against the All-Father's ward and most utilized servant.

For all this, Loki knows, Sigyn feels of late only animosity towards the All-Father. But Odin is as a father to Loki. The nearest thing to such he's likely to ever have. He's tried explaining to his wife, tried to make her understand.

He knows what he has to tell her now will only make that task all the more impossible.

Judging by the expression across her face, the way her smile has dropped away into lines of concern… she knows it well herself.

He wishes he didn't have to do this to her, or to the boys.

She reaches out, taking his hand, squeezing it tightly, and for a moment, he has to look away from her.

"Tell me true husband," she says softly. "what mad errand does the All-Father demand of you now?"

He hesitates only a moment, eyes fixing on the floor, before he gathers his courage to face her disappointment, and looks to her, holding her gaze strong.

"… He has ordered that I travel to Jotunheim, to Thrym's keep. To there retrieve Idunn whole, and return her to safety in Asgard."

Sigyn's face, with each word from his mouth, turns more heavy with horror, until she is staring at him with naked and open despair, her brow crumpled in grief.

"No." She breathes. Her head shakes in denial. "No."

"Sigyn," Loki tries, reaching out to her, but she steps back, again shaking her head, her arms coming up around herself.

"No," she says again, voice thick and broken. "how… How does he ask this of you? How when it is…" she pauses, her throat bobbing as she swallows thickly, tears forming in her eyes. She looks up at him. "He asks this of you? He asks that you travel alone?"

Loki nods once, stiffly, keeping his eyes on her.

"When you had no hand in Idunn's capture!? Is it not Heimdall who let the Jotun past his guard and allowed him his escape with the tender of the orchards?! Why must it be you who is sent to her rescue!? Why not the Gatekeeper!?" Sigyn cries in fury and fear, tears streaming now down her cheeks.

Loki shakes his head, struggling to keep his own tears at bay.

"You know well the whispers, wife. Beautiful Sigyn…" He tells her, voice trembling despite his efforts. There is nothing more painful to him than this. Than to see his sweet Sigyn so distraught. He does not deserve her tears. "they all think me responsible. They believe it was I who concealed Thrym's presence from Heimdall's eyes. The truth matters not to them. They want only recompense. The All-Father is forced to this, lest he find rebellion on his hands."

"He sends you to your death!" Sigyn wails, clutching at her breast with trembling hands. "And for what?! The avoidance of restless masses, whom he could so easily put down should he wish it? No, no Loki…" she cuts him off when he opens his mouth to speak. "do not deny it! You know Odin's power. You know any threat of rebellion would pose little concern to him."

She turns from him then, her hands lifting, fisting in her hair and pulling at it.

Her shoulders heave with barely suppressed sobs.

"He claims to care for you. Then why does he not disabuse the fools of their ignorance, and spare you this mission of suicide?"

At last, Loki looks away, his gaze falling to the floor, hands limp at his sides.

"… You know the complexities of rule Sigyn." He says quietly. "Were it so simple a thing, Odin would do it. He… he does not mean…"

"He means you harm husband!" She cuts him off, turning on him violently. "You are nothing to him but a tool!"

Loki's face crumples at that.

"Do not speak thusly." He shakes his head. "Please, Sigyn, you know the value to me of Odin's friendship. We… we are brother's by oath of blood. He came to me when I was naught but an outcast, a reject spurned by mine own people for the smallness of my form, living in the wilds of the Ironwood, alone and unwanted. He… he gave to me everything. Everything I have."

"Aye." Sigyn nearly spits. "And everything he will take from you! Mark my words, husband. No good will come of this. So long as you continue to blind yourself to his cruelties and machination's out of your childish, misguided belief that he does truly care for you, simply for him once having shown you a simple modicum on kindness…" she again shakes her head, sinking her teeth into her balled fist.

She stands there, silent, and Loki knows better than to interrupt.

"… Your life was nothing but harshness and pain, for so long. So long." She mutters at last, finally looking to him, eyes glassy with tears. "You think it beyond the All-Father's understanding, what the smallest kindness would mean to one used to naught but cruelty? He is a manipulator Loki. One beyond your very comprehension. Why can you not see this? You, who are so otherwise brilliant? Who does know a lie on its face, no matter how large or little, no matter how expertly it is told? Why can you not see how Odin is using you?"

At last, Loki looks away, turning from her, and in his chest his heart feels like a sunken stone.

He wipes at his eyes with his back to her, and feels suddenly then as though he may begin in earnest to weep. But he keeps himself still, and does refuse it. For he knows, should he start, he may never stop.

"… I do see it." He at last says, his voice hardly even a whisper.

"Then why…" Sigyn starts, her voice trailing off as he once more shakes his head, still turned away.

"…Because he showed to me kindness." He tells her softly, head bowing. "Because his kindness is the first I have ever known, and for it I did swear to him an oath of loyalty. I do not break my oaths Sigyn." He says, turning back to her. "Whatever else I may be, I do not break my oaths…"


End file.
